Tira: A Tale of Torment
by wickedmetalviking1990
Summary: "Misguided Angel of Vengeance", "Servant of Soul Edge", "Mistress of the Watchers": all these are her titles, but who is Tira? How did she become the servant of Soul Edge, and how did she survive for seventeen years without it? Rated M
1. Torment

**(AN: This is another tale of souls and swords. lol! Not my usual introduction to a _Soul Calibur_ fan-fic, but this is not a usual _Soul Calibur_ fan-fic. Here you are about to see something that is quite different, as far as typical story-telling and how the world is viewed. Co-written by my brother [he's not on here: he thinks all fan-fics are M-rated slash smut], what you are about to see is a new look at the fan's favorite character of the _Soul Calibur_ universe. Yes, this is the story of Tira.)  
**

**(Borrowing from _Siegfried_, as well as _Yoshimitsu: Angel of Vengeance_ and [in part] _The Early Church_, I will dispense with linear story-telling and re-tell our chief character's tale through flash-backs, which have significance to what is being told in the present. As with _Siegfried_, all of Tira's dialogue, regardless of mood, will be in normal font. Since we have the rare chance of looking into her mind, all of her "jolly" thoughts are** _Italicized_ **and all of her "gloomy" thoughts are in ****bold.)****  
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**(Now, let us begin...in the middle of the story! [lol])  
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* * *

**Torment**

_1600 AD_

_Aww, she looks so nice and peachy_, one half of her mind thought, as she stared at the little blond child, lying down with her chin curled up beneath her knees.

**She's weak and stupid!** The other thought retorted. **She still sucks her damn thumb when she sleeps.**

_It's just because she misses her mommy,_ the first thought began. _The one we destroyed!_

**We didn't destroy her**, quoth the second thought. **She destroyed herself.**

_You're such a kill-joy_, the first thought said.

**Besides**, the second thought asked. **How can she miss someone she never met?**

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

A little girl was playing in a field. Above her head, a song-bird flew out of her tree, merrily tweeting as she went. The little girl laughed to see such a pretty blur of color. She wanted to touch it, to feel it if was as pretty as it looked. She ran out after the bird, but its wings carried it out of reach. She wished she were a bird, with wings capable of flying. Then she would be free, able to go wherever she wished. The birds knew everything, for they were truly free, they could see all things, even to the ends of the world.

Suddenly, she heard a sad, pathetic squawk. She looked about, then felt something squishy beneath her foot. She lifted her little foot and saw a tiny baby bird, who had fallen out of the mother song-bird's nest: she had crushed it with her foot, killing it. For a moment, the little girl stared at the bird, wondering why it didn't move. It seemed so graceful, the way its beak was open and its little tongue splayed out of its mouth. She giggled, poking the dead bird. It nudged with her finger, but then remained stiff.

Minutes later, an excited little girl ran to her house to show her mother and father the dead bird. What she found, however, was the house aflame.

It was so exciting! The crackling of the flames, the shining lights of the fire, the warmth of the blaze: it made Tira's little heart race. In her ears, she heard strange noises, noises that seemed to fill her heart with euphoria, with desire, with ecstasy, rising up within her like a falcon that sprouted up from the tips of her toes and rose up throughout her, filling up every single inch of her body.

The noises were the screams of her parents. Her face was splitting apart at the corners with a huge smile.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

_Everyone has parents_, the happy thought stated. _We never remembered ours._

**They were of no consequence,** the gloomy thoughts stated. **They wouldn't have enjoyed our euphoria, our desires. They would have seen them as strange, unwanted, evil!**

_They're all so unfair!_

**That's hardly the least of it!**

She looked down at sleeping Pyrrha, so young, so innocent. Even at twelve years of age, she was as innocent as when she was three. She knew nothing of the evils of the world, of lust, greed, hatred: all the things that made her, Tira, all warm and fuzzy inside. Deep inside, she felt a strong desire to introduce her to that evil, to be the Snake in her Garden of Eden, to spoil this poor, delicate little flower.

_It would be so fun!_

* * *

**(AN: In order for this story to be told as it should be, it will definitely be M-rated. I know there are some things I'm not allowed to talk about on here, so I will attempt to skirt around them in order to tell the story [as we interpret it] without getting this story taken down.)**


	2. Horrors

**(AN: I bet you looked at the last chapter and thought, "Why is this rated M?" Well, you'll definitely see why in this chapter.)  
**

* * *

**Horrors**

_1559 AD_

A little girl was being carried to the gallows. The town of Fahrdorf in the Duchy of Schleswig had finally caught the one who was responsible for all the murders. It all happened two years ago, when a little orphan girl was taken in to the town's convent, where the nuns kept a nursery and orphanage for wayward children. Mere days later, the convent burned to the ground, nuns and children trapped inside. Over the next two years, people started disappearing, later to be found murdered in such horrible ways. After the townspeople organized a search of the entire village, they finally found the murderess, a fresh kill at her feet and blood on her hands. No need for a jury, she was caught red-handed, literally, and her denials just made her all the more guilty: the killer would hang today.

Or so the people of Fahrdorf believed. Hidden at the back of the crowd was another little girl, her hair a mopy mess of black strands. She was an orphan as well; in fact, she was the one who was the murderess. After the fire, she left her home-town, whatever the name was, and came to Fahrdorf. The nuns took her in, but when they beat her severely after she strangled a cat, laughing as the thing died in her hands, she burned down the convent, locking them all inside. It was just like how her parents died, so much fun. Then she wandered about the town, doing as she saw fit. When she realized that the authorities were closing in on her, she hid in a house where they also had a five-year-old daughter with dark hair. She killed the girl's parents, slit their throats and made sure the daughter would find their bodies and get their blood on her hands.

Now she watched as the little girl was about to be sent to her death.

"_Bedes, bedes, bedes_!" the girl begged as she was being carried up the scaffold. "I didn't do it! I'm innocent, I swear!"

"Be quiet!" the guard who carried her up the stairs shouted, cuffing her a sound blow across the face. She was then carried up the rest of the way to the scaffold. Since it was made for someone larger, a barrel had been placed underneath the noose.

"Good people of Fahrdorf," the sheriff of the town began. "On this day, the twelfth of October, in the year of our **LORD** fifteen hundred and fifty-nine, I, your sheriff, by the virtue vested in me by our lord the Hertug, do order this ungodly, murderous b*tch to hang by her neck until dead!"

People cheered, though a few were sorrowful. Behind the scenes, the little girl was amazed. It made no sense to her little mind. When she killed something or someone, she alone was happy, and everyone else was angry, shocked, afraid or disgusted. Now someone was about to die, and they were happy as well. What this meant, however, would not dawn upon her until much later in life.

At the scaffold, the priest began to administer Last Rites. In the crowd, many began crying out to the priest not to give her the honor of Last Rites: she didn't deserve it, after what she had done. While the priest continued, the executioner was preparing the shroud, when once again the crowd booed. They didn't even want to spare this child the dignity of a death-shroud, they wanted to see the murderess die in every bit of agony. The sheriff obliged them.

"_Bedes_, I didn't kill anyone!" the girl sobbed. "_Bedes_, you have to believe me! I'm a good child, I go to church, I say my prayers. _Bedes_, I didn't kill my parents!" She was now weeping and crying so much, the sheriff ordered the guard to strike her again.

The noose was placed around her neck. She gasped in anticipation, waiting for the final drop. Somewhere in the crowd, a drum went off, pounding away the last final seconds. The sheriff approached the girl, standing atop the barrel with the noose around her neck, and kicked the barrel out from under her.

Suddenly, strong hands grabbed her from behind. She was being dragged away from the sight, just as the little girl was dying and cries of joy echoed from the crowd. A shroud disappeared over her own head, and suddenly her heart stopped. Had she been discovered? Was she about to die?

* * *

The shroud was removed. She gasped, her throat was intact: she was not dead. She found herself in a cave, surrounded by dozens of men who snarled at her if she looked at them. After a few moments, a young man appeared before them, wearing a cloak of bird feathers. They were black and so luxurious that the little girl was desirous to run her hands through each and every one of the feathers of that cloak.

"Welcome, baby birds, to the Birds of Passage," a woman's voice said. The little girl noticed that who she had mistaken for a young man was actually a woman in man's clothing. "This place shall be your world from now until the day you die. You are here because we have noticed your particular appetite for murder: you see, the Birds of Passage specialize in killing. You are now baby birds, which means you are initiates into the Birds of Passage. You will kill whoever we tell you to kill, you will kill whenever we tell you to kill, you will kill without expecting a reason or an explanation. After you've killed enough, and if you're still alive, you will become a Bird of Death, and be ready to begin your assignments."

She walked among them slowly and deliberately, eying them all one after the other. Many quailed beneath her steely gaze, but not the little girl. Moderen looked at her, then looked away with disgust, then stood before them again and addressed them all.

"There is no place for weakness in the Birds of Passage. There is no god, no law, no king or country that can save you: while you are here, you belong to us, and you will kill for us." She then looked off into a cave passage and shouted orders in a loud, stern voice. Two men in black appeared, dragging a man between them.

"You might be asking yourselves," she said, looking down at the man brought before her. "Who this man is, and why he has been brought before you." Swiftly, Moderen drew forth a dagger and cut the man's throat. Several of those around the little girl cringed, or cried out in fear or disgust.

"Reasons don't matter. Killing is a part of your life now: shy away from killing and you are weak. The weak do not survive around here, and, be assured, we will beat the weakness out of you with our own bare hands. You will kill and you will watch your comrades kill, you will become so filled with killing that you will love it! If not..." She eyed the dead, bleeding man at her feet. "If not, then you will die for the sport of others. Dismissed!"

One by one, the others were being led away from the group by guards, all of them dressed in black. Just as one was about to send the little girl away, Moderen stopped him and walked towards her.

"And what the fuck are you?" she asked condescendingly. "Solnhofen!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a man appeared at her side, saluting her with hand raised outward, palm open and extended.

"Yes, Moderen?"

"You bring me a fucking child!" she growled. "Do I look like some kind of wet nurse?"

"No, believe me, she's killed at least seventy-five people in two years," Solnhofen continued. "I've been watching her actions, and I highly recommend her."

A sneer crossed Moderen's face, which then turned into a smile.

"Very well," she said. "Since you recommend her to me, you won't mind ridding her of certain...unnecessary things."

"What are you saying?"

"You know perfectly well what I'm saying."

"But she's a child! We don't usually do that until they're at least thirteen!"

"She is weak," Moderen said. "Feeble, innocent. You have to take that away from her early on." She looked down at the little girl. "Come back to me when you've done the job."

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

The two were sleeping on the ledge of a cliff high in the mountains. Tira had chosen this spot because it was frequented by the birds. She always liked birds, perhaps that was why the first name she remembered was _Eiserne Drossel_, the Iron Thrush. She always loved birds: they were free to go wherever they wished, do whatever they wanted, kill whatever they wanted and learn whatever secrets they wanted without reprisal from the weak, land-bound creatures.

_Fly fly, pretty birdies_, her happy thoughts sang in her head.

**Just shut up,** the angry, darker thoughts replied. **Get some sleep.**

_But we're not sleepy_, it was true. Tira could not fall asleep. Something was bothering her, but she just couldn't put her finger on it.

_Hey, here's a thought!_ the happy thoughts declared.

Slowly, her hand reached over to the sleeping Pyrrha. She was young, so innocent, so fair. She couldn't be allowed to continue like this, it was her right, her duty, her _responsibility_ to introduce her to the world as it was: and what better way to do it than _that_? She didn't really know what would happen if she tried _that_ on her. She was five when she was first touched: it had been against her will, something the masked man did to break her innocence, her weakness. Even eight years later, when her breasts started growing, she tried it, out of curiosity, just to see what would happen: the result was something weak, pathetic and tame. She didn't get as much enjoyment out of it as she did out of slitting someone's throat, watching them choke, gargle and drown in their own blood.

But what would happen if she did _that_ to someone else? She had seen it happen with other young girls abducted into the Birds of Passage, and they didn't like it any more than she had. She recalled listening to their screams and cries, how it made her feel: it seemed to hurt them, or so she believed. Maybe if she did it to Pyrrha, she could hear those screams again, just to pass the time before her next kill. Her hand had already rested on Pyrrha's thigh, crawling its way south like a spider.

**What the hell are you doing?** the grumpy thoughts bellowed.

_I wanna see what will happen!_

**Idiot! You know what will happen. But it's no use with her: she won't scream, she'll just whine and cry and say "I'm sorry" over and over until we're both so annoyed at her, we'll want to rip her throat out! She's vital to our plan, we need her to trust us. **

_Aww, we never get to have any fun!_ the sad thoughts pouted.

**Don't worry. The next time we're among people, we'll kill someone real slow-like. We'll drain their blood, drop by drop, with an ear to their chest as their heart gives out.**

_It'll be so much fun!_

Mercy is for the weak. That was one of the first lessons she learned in the Bird of Passage. It was easily learned and easily applied: she never gave a single thought to her victims. She was ordered to kill them, killing them made her happy, ergo killing without mercy came naturally. This moment, she had shown mercy to her pet out of nothing else than boredom, or was it _really_ boredom? Could it not be because she herself knew how painful it had been that first time, all those years ago?

_Am I weak?_ her happy thoughts asked worriedly.

* * *

**(AN: An interesting chapter here, to be sure.)**

**(I've always thought that Tira doesn't really know what sexual orientation she is, because her desires are killing and causing people pain. Of course, the many slashers on her would love to see her doing naughty things with the Azure Knight, but the thing is, she would do those if the host of Soul Edge were a woman. Her passions lie with killing and causing pain, not really with her body.)  
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**(A rare moment where we get to see Tira actually show mercy to someone, and a moment of self-doubt. Is her mercy truly altruistic, or is it motivated purely by her lusts for an adequate torture-high, which her gloomy side doesn't believe Pyrrha can give her? Something to wrap your minds around while I get to work on the next chapter.)  
**


	3. Iron Thrush

**(AN: Well, this is like my very first story all over again: when I go extreme, I definitely go extreme. Sorry if the last chapter was way too shocking. After all, this is M-rated, so there will definitely be some bad things happening: it's almost guaranteed in a story about Tira. As far as being...well, you know..., that was part of the 'hazing' of the Birds of Passage, to break in their female members. Of course, it is very wrong and I am not condoning it at all! However, my brother and I both agreed that something very traumatic had to happen early on with Tira.)  
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**(As far as extreme material goes, I've seen some pretty bad stuff on here - up to and including downright incest. What I put in the previous chapter was for the purpose of the story, and I didn't go into intimate detail precisely because of how gruesome and wrong it is [imo]. Never fear, the worst you can expect in the coming chapters is blood, cursing and such [that sounded equally wrong. lol].)  
**

* * *

**Iron Thrush**

_1600 AD_

"No, no, no!" she sighed, as Pyrrha collapsed to the ground. "You're doing it wrong."

"I...I'm sorry!" Pyrrha begged.

"And stop apologizing!" Tira snapped angrily. Her 'gloomy' thoughts surfaced at what she had heard for the thousandth time from her little pet. "Maybe you should be called _Svaghed_."

"What does that mean?"

"It means 'weakness.'"

"I'm sorry I'm so weak," Pyrrha whined, barely able to push herself up into a sitting position.

"You can't be weak! Naughty naughty!" Tira giggled. "The world is full of bad people. If you let on that you're weak, they'll take advantage and do all sorts of terrible things to you!" _What fun!_

"I'm sorry!"

Tira saw that Pyrrha was having difficulty getting to her feet. With a wearied sigh, she walked over to her, picked her up and placed her on her feet.

**She needs to learn on her own**, the angry thoughts ordered. **That's how _we_ were t****aught.**

_But she's not going to kill us,_ the happy thoughts returned.

**Don't rule that out yet, our plan hasn't come to fruition yet.**

_But what if I don't wanna_ _die?_

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

"Then you kill!" Moderen shouted. "That's the only way to survive in this world."

She was now nine years old, the little girl assassin. She was called Eiserne Drossel by Moderen, who had taken her on as her private apprentice. Moderen was stern, unforgiving and exacting when it came to teaching Eiserne how to kill: she expected nothing but the best.

They were in a courtyard outside of the cave, with a tall, muscular assassin pitted against wee Eiserne. Both had swords and were told to use whatever they had at their disposal. Unfortunately, though Eiserne could kill a man in five different ways now, she was helpless when it came to using a sword.

"You like killing, no?"

"_Ja_."

"So kill him!" Moderen ordered.

"And if I can't?"

"Then he will kill you!"

"But what if I..."

"We already said this! Just fucking kill him!"

The large assassin ran at Eiserne, and she rolled aside, dropping her sword. It was useless to her now. The assassin looked about for its prey, when suddenly a small thing latched onto its back, hands gripped tightly around his throat. Eiserne was clinging to the man's back, arms twisting his neck. He flailed about like a madman, and still she clung tightly to him, gasping in excitement with each heaving gasp for breath the assassin took. At last he collapsed to the floor of the courtyard, her arms still tightly around his neck.

"Well done," Moderen stated. "For an amateur." She didn't recognize Eiserne's skill or applaud her for a reason: she wanted her hungry to be the best, wanted her constantly improving her skill, never satisfied with how she was: satisfaction meant apathy, and apathy was death.

"It's been four years, _fuglemor_," Eiserne stated. "Four years of killing, training, fighting, obstacle courses: when? When will I be ready?"

"If the truth be told," Moderen replied. "You are almost ready. There is only one task you must undertake."

"And what is that?"

"Come to my chambers tonight and you will receive your final rite. You are a Bird of Death in all but name."

Eiserne smiled at this, bowed to her master, her _fuglemor_, as she called her, and departed. The day was exceptionally bright, perhaps there would be birds out in the sky for her to stare at and watch.

* * *

Birds were always so beautiful, so free. That was why she loved them, for nothing seemed to bring harm to them, or interfere with their chosen flight. She watched the birds so much that her _fuglemor _gave her the name Eiserne Drossel, and thus she was known by all the others Birds of Passage. The only punishment she had endured the most was for being tardy: she often lost count of time while watching the birds she loved, wishing that one would find her and she could train it and make it her pet, though it would always be free to roam.

Tonight, however, she was not late. She could not be late for her last rite of passage: she would be a Bird of Death, doing what she loved best and finally ready to take on real assignments with the others.

She had never been into _fuglemor_'s private chambers before, and wondered what would happen once she passed through the forbidden black doors, damasked with a silver swallow. Warily, as she approached the door late that night, she knocked on the wood.

"_Fuglemor_?" she asked. "It's Eiserne."

"Enter." Moderen replied.

She slowly and carefully pushed the door open. Inside was a room bare of anything, save for a narrow shaft that allowed the light of the day to spill down into this chamber. The bed was nothing more than a blanket lying at the side of the cave, and there were no chairs, stools or tables. Moderen was sitting cross-legged with her back to the wall, a strange metal hoop lying before her.

"Ooh!" Eiserne exclaimed, as she gazed upon the strange metal object. "What is it?"

"What do you know about your ancestor's history?" Moderen asked.

"Not much, _fuglemor_."

"It was said," Moderen began. "That there was a great serpent, that grew from a tiny egg, and grew so large it circled the world and could bite its own tail." She laughed. "The thunder-god, the one my people cried to against the Christ-god when He first came to this land, was said to be destroyed by this serpent. It's amusing, that my people put such faith in something no more powerful than themselves."

"Uh, is that all you wanted to talk to me about, _fuglemor_?"

"No, there is more. Sit down." Eiserne sat down before Moderen. "This weapon represents more than just Jormundgar: it represents the endless cycle of birth, life and death. The tail is being devoured by the mouth, just as the new life is feeding off the death of the old. That is the way of the world, and the Birds of Passage embrace that axiom."

Eiserne nodded intently.

"You kill because it excites you," Moderen continued. "Because it makes you feel things..." She paused. "Things you're not ready to be feeling. That has been enough so far, and it is good for your assignments: but there is another reason you must kill. Death is how life goes on: just as you must kill in order to live, killing allows the world to go on. You must kill in order to grow."

"Where is this going, _fuglemor_?" Eiserne asked.

Moderen rose from where she stood, her eyes looking down at the metal hoop. Eiserne didn't know what to say, and, so it seemed, neither did Moderen. They remained silent for a moment, the howling of the wind in the shaft behind them the only sounds that passed between them in the dark. At last, Moderen sighed and thus answered.

"You have to kill me."

Eiserne was so shocked, she gasped out loud, hands going up over her mouth. It seemed too shocking, especially considering all that had happened between them in the past four years.

"But...but I can't!"

"You must," Moderen began, her voice strained and weary, as if trying in vain to hold back something unknown, strange and potentially dangerous. "These last four years, after I...I gave the order, I took you under my wing, as it were, to train you to be my successor. I've never felt more proud of a Bird of Death than of the one standing before me now." She sighed in resignation. "But it is the law of our organization, and the natural order of life: you have to kill me so your training may be completed."

"I can't, I just can't!"

"Do it, _k__ære_," Moderen stated. "If you won't, I will kill you." In one swift move, she jabbed her foot under the ring of the metal hoop, kicked it up and took it in her hands.

Eiserne quivered in her boots, fearing the inevitable. She couldn't do this, she just couldn't. The people in that house meant nothing to her, she never remembered them: Moderen, her _fuglemor_, however, was different. She was the mother who was stern and demanding, whose harsh critiques and endless berating made Eiserne a stronger girl and a better killer.

_I can't kill her!_ she thought. _I don't want to kill her! But if I don't, then she'll kill me. But what if I don't want to die?_

**Then kill her!** Eiserne froze in fear. She heard a sound echoing in the room: a voice speaking as though it were from her own mouth. She looked about this way and that, but saw no one save for Moderen and herself. Yet the voice was insistent.

**You love to kill, it makes us happy! She commands you to kill her, so kill her!**

_But she's my fuglemor! I...I love her!_

**Love is for the weak! We are not weak. All we need is each other!**

_I can't do it!_

**She told you to kill her! She _will_ kill you if you don't kill her. You don't want to die? So do it! Kill her!** **Now!**

The metal hoop was swinging, its edge, she assumed, was sharpened like that of the swords and daggers they used: and all she had was a short-range dagger tied to her belt. But this was what she had been trained to do, what she loved to do: kill. She couldn't fail, there was no way: her training was much too great for any accidents or slip-ups. Four years of endless murders had turned her into a merciless killing machine, a beast that fed off death, blood, carnage and destruction: into, basically, a human.

Yet she couldn't do this one: this final order was the most impossible one she had ever been given. If her superiors had told her to kill a little child, burn down a church, kill Pope Gregory or climb to the Moon, she would have done so even if it would have killed her: anything but this! She didn't want to admit it to anyone, but she loved Moderen, as though she were the mother she never had. Now she was tasked with the most impossible of tasks ever, one that no child should ever be forced to endure...kill their parent.

It was over too quickly. Eiserne wondered if Moderen had put up much of a fight at all. She knew that Moderen knew the rules of the Birds of Passage, and, if she indeed was as proud of her as she let on, she might have intentionally thrown the fight out of some weak feelings of affection towards her, Eiserne.

**Just shut up!** the voice barked at her. **You don't need her. She was right: life needs death. If she had been kept alive, she would have dragged you down. You killed her, that's all that matters.**

For some strange reason that she never fully figured out, Eiserne picked up the metal hoop. The dagger she left buried in Moderen's body: she never liked those to begin with. This weapon seemed just right in her mind, as she eyed its beautiful, perfect shape. The ultimate killing weapon.

* * *

**(AN: I know the last chapter was extreme to the max, but in this chapter, we really get to see Tira's innocence die. She's had to kill her mother-figure, the only one she's ever had. Obviously, as per the canon [at least, from what I've read] her split personalities developed as the result of this. Yes, I was under the belief that happened in _SCIV_, but, as with _SCV_, the creators keep contradicting themselves and retconning old info.)**

**(There's a moment in Sophitia that I think needs bringing up here. In the sixteenth chapter of that fic, when Sophitia confronts Tira's lack of true happiness, she comments with a happy "boring!", but that's just a front, really. Also, in _SCIII_, one of her [gloomy] quotes is: "Way too quick, how boring!" As far as this story is concerned, those 'boring' moments, when she's not killing something, make her mind go back to the last time she killed something quickly: something towards which she felt the closest thing to happiness.)  
**

**(Maybe not the best mother-figure, but many times, in fiction and in real life, we have this authority figure whom we hate because of how they treat us, but then later discover that we've become stronger because of that. It's real, very real: believe me, it's real.)  
**

**(New chapter a.s.a.p. [need something to keep me away from _tumblr_].)  
**


	4. Evil Seed

**(AN: Unfortunately, one of my least favorite characters will absolutely _have_ to appear in this story. I saw 'one', because originally he was my least favorite all together, but then _SCV_ redefined my choice of least favorite characters. His appearance is imperative to what happens with our main characters, so the game makers insisted, and therefore he just has to appear.)  
**

**(As I tried [unsuccessfully] in _Yoshimitsu__: Angel of Vengeance_, I'm now attempting to have two integrated story-lines, featuring past Tira and present Tira. [obviously you've guessed that by now, lol]. The goal is to mirror her life in the events that occur in both the past and the present.)  
**

* * *

**Evil Seed**

_1600 AD_

October 31st was the Eve of All Saint's Day. For many, it was the night when evil ran free, trying to ruin the holiday of the morrow. For Tira, it was a day like any other. Today, however, she led Pyrrha into a town. Her journeys had taken her to many lands in Europe, and she learned, one way or another, how to speak the languages of the people about her: today, however, she was in Italy.

Her time with 'him' had led her to much sensitive information about what happened prior to his incarnation. He told her of a certain blind man who had been seeking the sword for his long dead master. How that old freak even managed to exist for this long bemused and befuddled her so much, it made her angry side come out whenever she thought about him. However, she knew that she had to find the Sword, she had to make sure it was okay. It had survived near destruction before, and Pyrrha's continued existence proved that it was alive, at least in some form or another.

The latter one, of course, wasn't much of an assurance of success. She had been there at her final moments, but there were still too many unanswered questions. Thus she had left Denmark and Germany for Naples, hoping that the surviving stock-holders of the Merchant of Death would have some information on where his blind servant was searching for the it.

She couldn't leave Pyrrha behind, not for a second. When she was younger, she kept running away from her and found her way into somebody. Tira couldn't stand for this, of course, and she murdered them in secret. It had to be secret, in order to get people to believe Pyrrha was cursed, a bad omen. She would be shunned, feared and hated by all: at such a young age, it would mean she would believe anyone who showed her even half a kindness.

_It's all part of the plan, after all!_ the jolly thoughts exclaimed.

**It's nauseating, being nice to that screaming, whining little child!**

_She's hardly a child anymore. She might be old enough just_ _yet._

**Just keep your mind to the plan, we've come too far to fail now.**

Her thoughts trailed away, to a time long, long ago. She had faded into herself, listening only to the voice in her head. As such, her behavior became even more erratic. She buried all that happened before in the blood of her enemies, of the innocent, of whoever got in her way.

* * *

_1584 AD_

It was night when the Birds of Passage hunted their prey. Swiftly as the birds for which they were named, they took care of high-profile targets. Usually such tasks were designated to the most disciplined, the ones who were impeccable in their killing. Eiserne Drossel was not disciplined, but she bore Moderen's ring-blade, so they knew beyond a doubt that she was one of them: one of the Birds of Death.

In the morning, they reported to their camp, which sat on the shores of the North Sea. This contingent was operating away from the cave compound, with all assassin units reporting directly to Solnhofen. Eiserne was among them, though she sat at the rear of the group. She hated Solnhofen, though she never gave her hatred voice.

_He hurt us_, she thought.

**Get over yourself! That was five years ago!**

_But still..._

**You don't need to dwell on it. When the time is right, just slit his throat and you'll be avenged.**

"Nineteen out of twenty targets," Solnhofen said. "Most would call that a success: it is _not_ a success! You've failed! Why is it that you failed?"

"It was her fault!" one of the younger men pointed at young Eiserne. "The two targets were together and she attacked the first one, scaring off the other before I had the chance to..." In one swift motion, Solnhofen drove his sword through the assassin's throat, then approached Eiserne with a hateful glare.

"Do you want to die?" he shouted.

"No!" she happily returned.

"Then wipe that smug grin off your face!" he struck her across the face with his fist. "And act like you know what you're doing!"

"I'm told to kill, so I kill!" Eiserne angrily bit back.

"Your hand falls too swiftly onto the hilt of your sword," Solnhofen derided. "You're a danger to all of us. You need a firm hand to keep you in line."

"I'm also your best assassin!" Eiserne replied, seething in anger. Obviously, this stung Solnhofen, or caught him off-guard. He did not reply immediately, but simply sniffed angrily, then turned about, addressing the others.

"I remind you all," he said. "That you are thoroughly expendable, no matter what rank or importance you may hold. Keep your ass in line, or I'll..."

He never had a chance to finish his sentence. A boom, like the sound of thunder roaring beneath the ground, echoed across the sky. In the south-western sky, a bright flash of blue light crackled up to the heavens like a pillar of fire. More than a few eyes were looking at the brilliant pillar, save for Eiserne. She saw a black raven crossing the sky, flying away from the bright light. Something inside her made her feel that she shouldn't be looking at the light.

And she soon knew why. Suddenly all was quiet, save for heavy, panicked gasps coming from Solnhofen's lips. She turned around, hand reaching to the dagger hidden within her boot, and saw something quite unnerving. Solnhofen was on his knees, hands tearing at his body. There was blood all over his hands as he scratched and clawed himself to pieces.

"Voices, so many voices!" he cried out. "Out! Out! Get them out of my head!" His hands moved up and started clawing at his face. He didn't seem to be noticing the pain, only whispering and muttering something that made absolutely no sense.

**Pitiful**, the other voice thought. **Look what he's become: a raving idiot!**

_It's so...exciting!_

**Of course it is! The question is, what are we going to do about it?**

_Huh?_

**You know what that bastard did to us: we should kill him now, while we have the chance. He's the only one of rank, no one will blame us, not when we've claimed command after he's at our feet, with blood pouring out of his throat!**

_But we're still young. They wouldn't follow us now._

**They will follow who they fear, and we could make them fear us.**

_No! We want to be free, like the birds in the sky!_

All eyes gazed upon Solnhofen, as he tore his flesh apart, muttering and shouting at nothing. Eiserne, meanwhile, had taken her ring-blade and vanished into the day, turning her back forever on the Birds of Passage.

**Stupid! We could have killed him, we _should_ have killed him!**

_He'll die regardless,_ the other thought exclaimed happily.

* * *

"Step lively, now!" she called back.

Something was wrong. She didn't hear the little child cry and apologize, as was her wont. Casting a suspicious eye behind her shoulder, she suddenly discovered that Pyrrha was gone. She wasn't following her!

_Oh no!_ her jolly thoughts bemoaned. _She's not here! Where could she be?_

**You idiot!** the angry thoughts retorted harshly. **You let her out of your sight!**

_But who would kidnap a twelve-year-old girl?_

_**We**_** did, when she was much younger, stupid! Have you forgotten** **already?**

_We've got to find her! She's important to our plan!_

**Yes, she's vital. Now, if I were a stupid little girl, where would I hide?**

_Most of the children we've killed have cried for their mommy before they died. _This elicited a giggle from Tira at the thought of all those dead children.

**But she doesn't have a mother, we made sure of that. Are you sure she doesn't remember home?**

_We wiped her memories, didn't we?_

**Didn't you?**

_Yes, yes! Oh, things never go my way!_

**Just shut up and keep your head together. Now, let's start looking.**

* * *

**(AN: Some interesting things happen here. As you see, something has happened in this chapter that propels our anti-heroine into a very real challenge. It's all canonical, of course, though I might have stretched things out for the purpose of the story.)**


	5. Not Normal

**(AN: New chapter! Yay!)  
**

* * *

**Not Normal**

_1600 AD_

She had searched Naples from top to bottom, asking, bribing and cajoling whoever she thought might have some knowledge about the little blond girl. In the end, she received no information whatsoever. Everything was falling down about her ears, and her plans had come to naught all too soon.

In the middle of the night, wastrel Tira wandered the streets, alone again and sorrowful. She didn't frequent inns in the places she went: so many people around her made her desirous to see one of them killed, and other people made such a fuss if she killed someone, almost as though it was wrong. She laughed at the thought of killing being wrong, but it was shallow mirth, useless to lift her spirits: an empty laugh.

_She's just not here!_ Her jolly side was not so jolly as she exclaimed the situation that had befallen her.

**No shit, stupid!** Her gloomy side was even gloomier and angrier than ever. **She was the key to our plans. Now, because of you, we've lost her!**

_Why is it my fault? She's the stupid one for not keeping up._

**You're not thinking! We can't afford to lose her!**

_Why not?_

**What did you say?** the gloomy voice spoke slowly, with slow simmering anger.

_She's still alive, that means it could still be out there, gathering strength, healing its wounds. What if we left it come back to power on its own? It will do so, and we will go back and worship at its feet, as we did in the good ol' days. She's not that important to our plans. Why don't we just forget about her, find some place to wait it out until it returns?_

**Settle down? Are you mad? You know we can't do that!**

* * *

_1585 AD_

She had been wandering the towns, going from place to place for a little over a year. She had no family, no ties to the Birds of Passage other than the ring-blade and her given name. Life seemed to have little meaning among the harsh, cold world.

Then they came into her life. One wet, rainy and muddy day, the clouds were heavy with rain, like an expecting mother. But she wasn't happy, not even when the thought of cutting babies out of their mother's stomachs crossed her mind: the rain was beating down relentlessly upon her, her shoes had long since rotted away into uselessness and the voice in her head had since gone silent.

While she was trudging sorrowfully through the muddy streets, a carriage rolled past her, splashing filthy water right in her face. Suddenly, the carriage came to a stop. The door opened up, and a man dressed like a gentleman, covering his head with his cloak, stepped out and approached her.

"Go home, child!" he began. "Don't you know better than to be running out in the middle of the street when it's raining?"

"I..." she began. "I don't have a home."

"You don't, huh?" the gentleman sighed. "Well, do you at least have some place to stay for the night? Maybe the orphanage or the work-house?"

"No," the little girl shook her head.

"Alright, then," he said. "Come along, you're staying with me."

"I am?" she asked.

"I can't as well let you stay out in the rain," the gentleman walked back to the carriage, lowered the steps at the foot of the door and helped the little girl into the carriage. He then climbed aboard, ordered his driver to continue back to his house, then sat down next to her, closing the door behind them.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

She looked outside the windows of the carriage, seeing the town pass them by swiftly in the falling rain. They passed through a dark forest, where the rain and lightning became even more frightful than before. The forest then gave way to a huge field of grass, wet with the fallen rain. On a hill was a manor, such as she had visited when slaying her high-profile targets: it was beautiful, the windows glowing with candle-light that beckoned to her from out of the darkness of the storm.

When they arrived, the gentleman opened the door and led the little girl out behind him. Servants were there at the door, ready to meet him. At a word from him, they opened the door. Once inside, he started calling for servants.

The little girl, meanwhile, was ogling everything in sight. It was cleaner and prettier than anything she had seen in her entire life. The walls were made of white wood, with gold furnishings and a crystal chandelier that caught the light of all the candles about the room. A grand staircase led up to the levels above, and there were six doors on this level alone: three to the left and three to the right. It was so huge, it could fit all of the cave of the Birds of Passage within this room alone and still have enough room for more, she deemed.

Servants appeared minutes later, bustling out at the call of their master. One told him that a new change of dry clothes had been prepared and was awaiting him in his room. Another said that his supper had been drawn and the family was waiting for him to join them.

"Take this young girl down to the servant's quarters," the gentleman said, gesturing to the little street-urchin at his side. "Have her cleaned and give her something to wear, then bring her up to the dining room." He then turned to one of the maids. "Prepare one of the guest rooms for this little girl." He then knelt down and turned to her.

"Go with these people," he said. "They won't hurt you, they're going to clean you up, make you presentable for dinner."

She didn't say anything, but complied as the servants led her away to be cleaned. They led her through one of the doors, then down a flight of stairs to the servant's quarters, which sat next to the kitchen. Two of the maids appeared with a large barrel, cut in half down the middle, which they covered with a white sheet then filled with water. They then removed the little girl's clothes and bade her enter the barrel and wash up.

During her time with the Birds of Passage, she heard some very silly things about water. Some of the assassins, even the men who were at least three times her age and could easily carry her on their shoulders, were afraid to get wet; they said that it took off the skin. She didn't feel this as she stepped into the warm water of her tub. It was warm and moist, almost like blood. With a contented sigh, she sat down and began cleaning years of filth off her body.

Minutes later, she was brought out of the tub, dried off with a clean towel, then clad in a simple dress with a white apron. The head servant of the house led her from the servant's quarters back up the stairs to the main hall, where she saw three more servants cleaning up the floor. Apparently her feet tracked mud into the house. The head servant then led her through a door on the other side of the hall, where a long table was arranged. The gentleman sat at the farthest end, with his lady at the end nearest to herself. At the lady's right was a little girl whom she assumed was her own age.

"Welcome," the gentleman said. "Please, have a seat."

The head servant pulled up a chair across from the other little girl and she took her seat as instructed. The gentleman then told the head servant to prepare food for their guest. After she left, he introduced the girl to the family.

"For the time being," he began. "You will stay with us. I am Greve Marcus Engel. This is my wife, Grevinde Gitte, and our daughter Talia. What is your name?"

The little girl spoke slowly, and with her eyes to the ground.

"Eiserne."

"That's a stupid name!" Talia exclaimed.

"Mind yourself!" Grevinde Engel scolded her daughter.

"An interesting name, Eiserne," Greve Engel stated. "Is that your family name or your given name?"

"Huh?"

"I am Greve Marcus Engel," the greve stated. "Greve is my title, Marcus is my given name and Engel is my family name. Is Eiserne your given name?"

"I...I guess so."

"Do you have a family name?"

"Drossel."

"You are a strange child indeed!" Grevinde Engel stated.

"No matter," Greve Engel replied. "You are now part of the Engel family and will receive a proper name. I shall call you...Tira Engel."

"Splendid idea!" Grevinde Engel commented, then turned to her daughter. "Talia, now you have a little sister to play with!"

"She's not my sister!" Talia stated glumly.

"Behave yourself, _kæreste_!" Grevinde Engel said, her voice apathetic and without any real commanding power.

The little girl they had named Tira looked about curiously at the dining room in which they were eating: it was the most beautiful one she had ever seen. Greve Engel was nice enough, though the grevinde and little Talia weren't exactly friendly company. Maybe they could grow to become friends. Maybe, just maybe, this was what she had been missing out on all this time. The voices were gone, perhaps for good: she would live in this house as Tira Engel, and live the normal, happy life of the adopted daughter of a Danish aristocrat.

After dinner, Greve Engel asked the grevinde to lead Tira up to her room, which the servants had already prepared. She ordered a servant to open the door for them as they arrived at the place set up for Tira; a little room on the ground floor. It was the largest room she had ever seen in all of her days, and it was to be hers. Grevinde Engel led her to the bed, watched as the servants removed her dress down to the under-lying nightgown, then waited until Tira was tucked into bed.

"Would you like a bed-time story?" the grevinde asked. She didn't even tell such stories to her own daughter; wherever did that compulsion come from?

The little girl, however, didn't know what to make of this: before, she fell asleep with a dagger clutched closely to her heart, fearful that one of the others might try to kill her off in her sleep. What really _was_ a bed-time story?

"_Ja_," she replied.

Surprised at the little girl's answer, Grevinde Engel sat down on the side of the bed and began to spin her yarn.

"Once upon a time," she began. "There were two children, a little boy and a little girl. They lived in a little cottage in the woods with their father and their stepmother. Now a terrible famine had struck the forest and they had no food to eat: the stepmother decides to send the children off into the middle of the woods and leave them there to fend for themselves."

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, because she wasn't their real mother, and she didn't care about them."

"If they were hungry, why not just eat the children?"

"Uh, no, that's not how the story goes," Gitte Engel chuckled uneasily, then continued her story. "Anyway, the little girl took a slice of bread with them, and she..."

"Wait, if they were so hungry that the stepmother wanted to abandon the children, how come they had bread?"

"Well, I don't know. That's just how the story goes! Now no more interruptions." The grevinde cleared her throat and then continued.

"So, the little girl took a slice of bread with them as they left, and while they were walking out into the forest, she left a trail of bread-crumbs, so that they could find their way home. But the birds ate the trail of bread-crumbs and soon the little boy and the little girl were lost in the forest. While they were wondering what to do, they followed a beautiful white bird that led them to a cottage made of ginger-bread in the middle of the forest. They were so hungry, they came to the house and started to eat the house.

"What they didn't know, however, was that a wicked old witch, who was blind as a bat, lived in the cottage. When she heard that someone was eating her house, she captured the little boy and the little girl and locks them in her house, with the intent to cook them alive."

"Serves them right," Tira said.

"I, what?"

"They were eating her house, it's just as well that she eat them. And all the birds in the story, it makes me so happy."

Grevinde Engel didn't know how to reply. Instead, she patted Tira on the head, whispered "Goodnight" to her, then blew out the candles and left.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

_1586 AD_

For two years, Tira lived in the mansion of Greve Engel. She had plenty to eat, and nice clothes to wear; it had been two years since she heard the voices in her head, and she believed that they might be gone for good. By any other means, she should be as merry as a lark. Yet, deep down inside, she knew that, some part of her, didn't really belong here. She noticed that the greve and grevinde favored Talia above her, and it made her feel excluded and disfavored. Though she had clean clothes and food to eat, she never received expensive presents or had the attention of the greve and grevinde as much as Talia did. This didn't bother her much, she was used to being excluded: regardless, she felt that she wasn't fully allowed here.

One bright sunny day, she was wandering through the mansion, frolicking about and singing a merry tune. Not because she felt happy, but because Talia did that, and she emulated her in her own private way, hoping in vain that her adopted parents would notice and shower her with the affection they shared only with Talia. She stopped in her prancing, looking out one of the mansion's tall windows. She mused that, despite the life she was living, she felt that something was missing.

The noise of a bird tweeting somewhere in the house stirred her from her thoughts. A smile split her face: it had been so long since she had seen a bird before, her favorite creatures. They were the ones she envied, and she remembered just why she envied them. Taking her skirt up in her hands, she ran about the mansion, eager to know from which room the lovely bird-song was coming.

Her search led her to Talia's room. She had only been there a few times in the two years she had stayed here, but it was only in passing and never allowed inside. Today, however, the door was open and a ray of sunshine was flowing into the room. Curiosity overcame her and she ran into the room, eager to see the bird. She saw Talia sitting by the open window, next to a small table with long wooden legs that were carved to resemble the talons of an eagle. Upon said table was a golden cage, in which sat a little bird on its roost.

"Oh!" exclaimed Tira. "It's so pretty."

"He's mine," Talia stated. "Papa bought him for me. Isn't he just darling? I think I'll call him apples: he reminds me of apples." She giggled gayly, but Tira said nothing in response. Just then, one of the servants appeared in the doorway.

"Mistress," the servant said. "Your father has returned. He's in the main hall, he wants to see you immediately."

"Yes, yes, I'll be there anon," Talia sighed. She rose up from her seat and prepared to leave, then halted just before she passed by Tira.

"Don't play with him!" she whispered venomously.

The servant led Talia out of the room and their footsteps echoed down the hall. Tira, meanwhile, hadn't paid much attention to Talia's warning; she was much too infatuated with that cute little bird. And what a stupid name, apples: it should have a name that befitted its beauty and what kind of bird it was, not just whatever came to mind. She crept up to the table and gazed at the bird in the cage.

"Hello, what's your name?" she asked the bird. It tweeted at her in response. "I envy you birds a lot: you're so free, never bound to anyone or any..." Just then, she remembered that this bird was trapped in a cage.

"Aww, that mean Talia's got you locked away in a cage, hasn't she?" she asked. "You can't be free like all the other birds."

In her time with the Birds of Passage, she learned the secrets of getting through locked doors; it helped her get at victims who were otherwise "safely locked away". She began to pick the lock on the cage almost instantly, using a needle from the table that Talia used for sewing. It is the way with children that if they are taught something early on, that when they are grown and have forsaken most, if not all, of the things of youth, there will be something of that ancient teaching still embedded in their minds deep into their adult-hood. Tira was not yet adult, but her time with the Birds of Passage certainly felt like a life-time ago. Regardless, the lock-picking skills she had obtained returned to her as quickly as the lightning flashes across the sky.

The lock gave way, and the door swung open on its hinge. Carefully, Tira reached into the cage and picked up the bird. It barely fit into the palm of her hand.

"You're so pretty," she said to the bird. "You belong in the sky!" With a wave of her hand, she tossed the bird out of the open window, where it opened its wings and flew away. Mere moments later, Talia and Greve Engel appeared at the entrance to Talia's room. Little Talia gasped in shock.

"She's gone! Apples is gone!" she wailed at first, looking in shock at the empty cage. Then her eyes turned with anger at Tira. "You did it! You little b*tch! I told you not to touch Apples!" She all but jumped at Tira, ready to tear her face and hair out with every finger of her hand. The greve, however, restrained his daughter.

"Tira," the greve said firmly to Tira. "You have behaved quite naughtily. It cost me 20 silver _krone_ to purchase that bird, and I bought it for Talia to play with, not you. You will be punished forth with." He summoned the nearest servant, and gave her instruction to take Tira out to the wood shed and beat her soundly with the whip used for the carriage horses.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

It hurt so much, bringing back so many bad memories, as Tira was beaten for what she didn't think was wrong. The poor little bird was a prisoner, trapped within its golden cage: it should have been free. As she made her way back to the house, her right hand rubbing her sore hind-quarters, it became clear in Tira's mind that she didn't really belong here. This wasn't her home, she never really had a home, except for the Birds of Passage. But they wouldn't take her back; she had, for all intents and purposes, left the clan, she would be as good as dead if she went back. But where could she go, and what would she do once she left?

There was, however, one glimmer of hope. While she was bent over the block of wood, receiving a punishment she felt unjust, she saw something metallic shining from the far end of the wood shed. Her heart leaped inside her: what could it be? Could it be _it_? Had he not gotten rid of it, but kept it stored away somewhere?

When she returned to her room, having thoroughly missed supper, she began planning her move. If she attacked the daughter first, she might be able to silence her and then take out the mother and father. But then again, if Talia screamed, it would alert the parents and the servants. In contrast, if she attacked the greve or grevinde, it might mean one of them waking up and causing a scene. That would complicate things horribly. Either way presented great risk to herself, and she knew that if she was caught, it would mean being thrown back out on the streets. But she was in the right, she knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt: the bird had to be free, and she was being punished for something that wasn't even wrong.

_Then again,_ she thought. _I've always been punished for things I do that people think are wrong. _

Suddenly it came to her, risen up from out of the darkest recesses of her memory. The memory of a girl her own age, dying for a crime she hadn't committed, came back into her mind.

_It doesn't make any sense! They killed her, they loved it, but when I killed people, nobody loved it! Only me! Are they stupid or what is wrong with them? _

Then it appeared, after so long an absence. For a moment, she was sad, afraid, not wanting to revisit that old life.

**They're selfish!** the voice said. **They want all for themselves, but the moment they see their own actions in others, they are quick to judge them as evil and wrong. **

"No, I don't want this!" she sobbed, banging her fists against her head. "Please, just stop!"

**You know what to do**.

"No, I don't!" she exclaimed.

**Oh, stop being such a whiny little b*tch and do what I tell you! You're just like that bird: you can't be bound to anyone or anything, not the Birds of Passage and certainly not these wretched people!**

She turned about, making her way towards the wood shed.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

_That was the last time we were bound to_ them, the jolly thoughts stated. _We called ourselves Tira, but the blade..._

**That's not the point! **growled the angry thoughts. **Our point is that we can't live a normal life. You remember how good it felt, killing the greve and his family that night after two years without killing.**

Tira paused, remembering her hands around the greve's throat, squeezing the pillow over the little girl's face, and dripping the poison into the grevinde's open mouth.

_It was fun!_

**That's where we belong: killing people and causing mischief. We can't be settling for the petance of 'normal' people. The religions and laws they've made deny us of our supreme happiness, and we won't let them control us!**

* * *

**(AN: The next chapter is sort of a continuation of what we see in this chapter, which is the point of the end of the chapter.)**

**(Only one question: how can I work Mitsurugi into this story? In my previous stories, I've had him make a cameo, since he's the one character who's come back for every installment of _Soul Calibur_, even in _SCV_, when he had no relevance to the Pyrrha/Patroklos-centric storyline. Therefore, he gets his place in this story, as in _Witch's Soul_: just where?)  
**


	6. L'incubo Bello

**(AN: This chapter has a double meaning, as shall be revealed. Also, I found a perfect place for my reveal of said character. It will be the only time one of our characters interacts with him without clashing weapons.)  
**

* * *

**L'incubo Bello**

_1591 AD_

She remembered the first time she heard about him. Living on the streets was never easy, even when she began to grow into maturity. If she thought life in the Birds of Passage was difficult, she suddenly realized that it got a lot harder the older she got. Men began to pursue her, trying to grab her in inappropriate places and make hateful shouts at her: she would kill them later, but it still hurt.

One day, it all changed. She was loitering outside of a bar, when she heard whispers of some horrible atrocity. Something about thousands killed, butchered, broken beyond belief and worse than dead. It sounded too good to be true: was there really someone else like her, someone who found distinct pleasure in killing and destruction? She crept closer to the window, listening intently to what was being said.

"A whole army?" one of the bar-men asked. "One man couldn't do that to a whole army."

"I tell you no lie," the other one replied. "All but a handful of the poor bastards were slain, God rest 'em."

"It just doesn't seem right," the first one said.

"I heard he's some sort of devil-knight," the second one stated. "All dressed up in blue armor, with a two-hand sword, stained with blood. They say he has a name in Germany, where he's from: _D__er Alptraum_."

When Tira finally found a place to sleep that night, she could not make herself slumber. So many thoughts were swirling around in her head at the revelation of this knight in blue armor, this cataclysm that killed whatever got in its way. It made her so happy: at long last, there was someone who was like her, who found pleasure in killing other people.

_I have to find him!_ she thought. _I have to pledge my undying service to him!_

**Finally,** the voices in her head told her. **We agree on something.**

* * *

Her contact was late. She had followed his instructions to the letter: meet him outside Castel Nuovo at midnight on the first night of the full moon. Of course, being a young girl - though she was twenty-six, practically an old maid, she looked as youthful and nubile as she had when she was seventeen - had its risks, especially in a big city at night. But she had faced such risks before, and always came out alive, if only soiled with their blood on her hands.

Out of the shadows, a shrouded figure approached, walking slowly and with sure steps. To Tira, she presumed that this was her contact: if it wasn't she would kill him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the figure approached, she could hear the clanking of metal: if it came to blows, her opponent would at least put up some kind of fight.

"You're late!" she barked at him.

"I had other business, Tira-san," the figure spoke out from beneath his hood. It was a man, with a deep, strong voice that, although it spoke German decently, the speech was broken and still rough. He was obviously not from around these parts.

**Good,** mused the gloomy thoughts. **No one will miss him if we have to kill him.**

_Oh, but that's the fun, isn't it?_ her jolly thoughts queried. _Killing someone who will be missed, that makes it all the more fun for us, especially since there will be people who will mourn his loss._

**Oh, you sure sound sentimental. Keep your head about you, we need the information out of him!**

"So," she sneered at the stranger. "Do you have what I want?"

"A ship left the harbor a few days ago," the strange man said. "It was going for Venice: on board were several slaves, including a young girl fitting your description."

"Who owned the ship?"

"Private contractor, some 'Damn-pierre' corporation or other: never heard of them. Are we done here? I have to catch the next ship for home, and it leaves in the morning."

"Oh, by all means!" she spoke with merry sarcasm. "Safe journey!" Then, as the hooded stranger was walking away, she whispered angrily: "Fool! He'll arrive far too late for what he's looking for."

_So we're off to Venice!_ sang the jolly thoughts as she meandered her way through the night toward the docks, looking for a ship on which to stow away. _It's so lovely, they say._

**Pay attention! **growled the gloomy thoughts. **We can't afford to make any mistakes.**

_There won't be any mistakes!_

**What if it's a disappointment? Another false trail?**

_Oh, you worry too much._

**And you know better?**

* * *

Venice, the city that floated upon the water. Tira knew whom she had to find, but getting there wasn't exactly easy. Once her boat landed, she sought out this "Dampierre Corporation", and discovered that it might as well be a myth. Almost nothing was known about its whereabouts, its members, or where its leader lived: all that was known was the name and that they operated in Venice.

She didn't know where to start, except at the bottom. And there she would start: she would make some killings, murder enough people and suddenly it got everyone's attention, she learned this from the very beginning. Maybe she would get the attention of someone even more important, perhaps a member of this illusive "Dampierre Corporation."

_It's so exhilarating!_ her thoughts merrily exclaimed. _The rush of going from street to street, committing bloody murders in hope of being located. It's just like the old days!_

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

She followed every rumor about _Der Alptraum_, drinking them up like water. Every time she found a place where it was said he had attacked and massacred people was like a holy place for her, hallowed ground to which she must make her earnest, heart-felt pilgrimage, in hopes of finding him. In one of these places, she found a little piece of metal, no bigger than a fig. It was a very queer thing, for it glowed with strange light: not reflecting the pale light of the sun, but giving off its own light, a bloody color of red.

Just holding it in her hands made her heart race. All sorts of cruel, nasty and wicked thoughts ran through her head, and she became filled with the desire to fulfill said urges.

_This is it!_ she whispered, almost on the verge of tears. _I feel it, it's here. It's right here!_

This was a part of _Der Alptraum_, she was almost certain of it. Just holding it made her sure beyond a doubt that this was unnatural from what the world considered natural: here was something that delighted in killing, in torture, in bloodshed and murder. This could only be a piece of _Der Alptraum_.

The cawing of a raven disturbed her thoughts. She looked up and saw the bird was large and all black: its eyes, however, were the most queer. They were not the usual yellow of a bird, but red. The same shade of red as the light emanating from that shard of metal.

"Hi birdie!" she greeted the raven.

The bird said nothing, but walked closer, its beak pointed at the tiny metal shard.

"You like this?" she asked. For a moment, the eyes of the bird and her own looked into each other. They were together for one brief moment, and in that moment she knew. This bird was no natural creature of the sky, but a servant of _Der Alptraum_. And here she was, with a piece of him and some knowledge of writing from her time with the Greve. What better way to make herself known to her future lord and master?

* * *

Ostrheinsburg. That was the name of this castle, situated upon the Rhine River. Men spoke this name in whispers, fearful as though it had some kind of power beyond that of ordinary names. Though most people were friendly enough to provide her with directions to the other places she visited in her journeys, until she killed them, that is, she had to resort to threats and violence almost immediately when trying to get directions to this place. No one wanted to talk about it and no one wanted to go there.

_I have no idea why!_ she mused, looking upon the dark, shadow-covered valley. _It's so...beautiful!_

The valley was covered in darkness, the very ground parched and dead beyond the healing touch of a strong spring rain. In the midst of the river, situated upon an island, were the ruins of a once-great castle. After her first letter, she sent several others to _Der Alptraum_, and learned thereby the name of this place. Now she was here, at last, to do as she had planned since she first heard of him.

She came to the edge of the River, shrouded in fog. That made her happy, for the fog always concealed her approach. _This will be a surprise_, she merrily thought, as she untethered her rope, picked up the ferry pole and pushed her way out into the river. For a moment, as she was using all of the strength in her little body to push against the current, she considered throwing the pole into the water and letting the current take her where it will. It seemed so easy, especially since nobody knew what she was like, no one in the whole world could appreciate her kind of happiness. They didn't want her, especially when she became happy, and no one would cry over her corpse.

**Stop thinking that way!** barked the voices in her head. **We have _Der Alptraum_, he is the one who understands us. Now forget all those stupid thoughts of suicide and focus on the task at hand!**

Focus. But she couldn't focus, not in this thick fog. It felt like night, with no sun or stars above and fog all around her. She heard noises in the darkness: the sound of the currents of the river, the soft blowing of the wind, and something deep, throbbing in the darkness. There was a flash of color, like green lightning, and suddenly she saw someone standing before her on the ferry barge: someone she thought she would never see again.

"What are you doing, Eiserne?" Moderen asked her.

"Mo...Fuglemor?" she asked. "I...What are you...How did..." Then her mood shifted and she addressed Moderen angrily. "My name is _not_ Eiserne! I'm not a tool of the Birds of Passage, I'm not _your_ tool anymore."

"But that's how it's always been, hasn't it, _barn_?" she asked Tira. "You're incapable of making your own decisions. You _enjoy_ being dominated, like how Solnhofen did when you were initiated."

"Shut the fuck up, b*tch!" Tira snarled.

"Your whole life, you have been controlled, Eiserne," Moderen continued. "Now you've thrown your lot in with that of a puppet of a greater power. So answer me this, baby bird: how can you hope to find happiness in a creature who is as broken and powerless as yourself?"

Her words cut her to the quick. She didn't have an answer: no matter how much she cursed or railed or shouted, she knew that she was right. There was no rebuttal to this accusation. But what was that she had said about a puppet of a greater power?

"Ha ha ha, so frail!" a deep, throaty voice laughed mockingly at her from the depths of the fog. Slowly a tall, masculine figure appeared from out of the mist, black of flesh but covered in robes of white. In his hand was a reaper's scythe, making him look more like the Grim Reaper than any human.

"You've come a long way, misguided Angel of Death," the deep voice spoke to her. "But the one you seek is not here. The Azure Knight is but a pawn of Soul Edge, and its power has been broken." With a menacing laugh, he vanished once more into the fog.

"Come back here and say that to my face!" she barked out angrily into the fog. "I'll cut your heart out!"

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

No escape now. After many long weeks and months searching, dead end after dead end, she finally found him, the one who called himself _Le Bello_, the head of the Dampierre Corporation. She watched him dining in his private mansion from the wooden chandelier. She despised him the moment she set eyes on him, sitting at the head of the table, being fed all sorts of dainties by two female attendants who might as well be bawds for how scantily they were clad. "Le Bello" himself, however, was quite the mess: crisp clothing, no lines or wrinkles, a yellow jacket lined with fur of some rare animal, gloved hands and not an ounce of skin shown below his face. This, however, was just as atrocious: a mustache that tapered so far away from his face, it looked like the horns of a cow, sat above his upper lip. The rest of his face was covered in so much white powder, it was impossible to tell his real age. In fact, she wondered if he had even dyed his hair.

She waited until he dismissed his attendants, whispering lecherous nothings into their ears before sending them off with a sharp smack on their hind quarters. Once the doors clicked behind them, she climbed across the rafters and made her way down quietly behind the man. She picked up a kitchen knife and held it to his throat.

"One word and your throat will be a blood fountain!" she nigh giggled.

"Please," he begged. "Spare my life. My daughter, she is sick!"

"Is that why you kidnapped a little Greek girl about a month ago?" she sneered.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" he whined.

"I bet you don't!" she replied. "You probably don't even know, do you? It was just another job for your little corporation. Maybe I _should_ kill you now."

"No, wait, wait, wait!" he hissed. "Please! I can be very helpful to you, yes?"

"Then tell me what you did with the little girl!"

"I don't know from little girl, I swear by the Virgin!"

"One more lie and I'll pull your tongue out of your slit throat!"

"Okay, okay," he answered nervously. "Uh, maybe there _was_ something about a little twelve-year-old orphan, running around the streets. Went by the name of Pyrrha, I think. But I don't know where she is, I swear!"

"You don't have a place where you keep your slaves?"

"Yes, but it won't help you! I sold her already."

"To who? Who did you sell her to?!"

"I don't know!"

"Don't you have records of your dealings?"

"Why? No records, no can tax Le Bello. All things are done in secret, especially the slaves. That's all, I swear!"

Tira mused on this angrily. It seemed she had come to a dead end. She could tell this "Le Bello" person wasn't lying when he said that he didn't keep records and that he didn't know where Pyrrha was. But that was even worse than if he had been lying.

"You watch your back, popinjay!" she growled at him, then pushed him face first into one of the dishes on his table.

Quicker than the flight of the raven, she escaped his mansion and made it to the streets. She had failed, her grand designs for Pyrrha's future, for the future of the Sword, had come to an end. Years of preparation, of scheming, killing, enduring that whining little brat, had all been taken away from her. She knew not where the Sword was located, nor could she find Pyrrha.

With all hope seemingly gone, she retreated back into her past, the one place where she had never failed.

* * *

**(AN: So many characters in this chapter! Her informant is Mitsurugi [that was his cameo], the one who visited her at Ostrheinsburg, creating that illusion, was, of course, Zasalamel, and Dampierre is "Le Bello." Didn't want to have him appear, since he's not one of my favorite characters [fourth worst character in the series, imo], but his appearance is very important to the time-line of the story.)**


	7. Language of the Mad

**(AN: I was working on _Witch's Soul_, but decided that to continue it would reveal too much, so I'm putting it on hold while I finish Tira.)  
**

* * *

**Language of the Mad  
**

_1591 AD_

The masked warriors from the East never stood a chance. They lay broken and bloodied in the hall of the usurer, never having achieved their prize. The gold inside? Never. These warriors, the _Manji-tou_ they called themselves, might be so-called "chivalrous thieves", but she knew that they had other goals in mind. Her new master had told her that many would be seeking the scattered shards of Soul Edge, and that she would do as she had done before they had met: return them to him.

She had taken a prisoner, though, and was dragging him behind her as she made her way to her next goal: back to Ostrheinsburg. This prisoner was strong, and had put up quite a valiant effort. In the end, however, it hadn't been enough and she had bested him. But the struggle made her feel alive: maybe this soul was strong enough to be fed to the Sword. She would bring him back to her master and present his soul to him as an offering. Anything for her lord.

His weapons she had confiscated. Very odd they were: thin bladed weapons, even the knife had a thin blade with a flat end. Even the language this stranger spoke was unlike anything she had ever heard before. Not a language of the west or north, or any language with which she was familiar.

"Say," she said merrily, turning back to her prisoner, whom she kept on a rope, with the other end around her arm. "Why were you there, robbing from that money-grubbing old fool? Hmm?"

The strange man said nothing, but kept his steely gaze on Tira's eyes.

"You're not bad, stranger," she said, suddenly growing angry. "But I don't like the look in your eyes. There's no need for a conscience!"

Suddenly, the stranger pulled her towards him, yanking the rope out of her hand. Now with the rope as his weapon, the stranger dropped into a battle stance, both arms still tied together.

"You look absolutely ridiculous!" she sneered. "But, still..." She laughed. "This might be fun!"

In one fluid motion, she swung Eiserne Drossel out, hacking the strange man's arms free. He looked at her, then at the weapon that was hanging from her belt.

"Oh, you want this?" she teased. "Why don't you come over here and _take_ it?"

The stranger attacked, using nothing more than his feet, with which he was quite skilled. A swift kick to Tira's stomach sent her plummeting backwards, falling hard on the ground. The stranger took his weapon from off her belt, and raised it above his head, ready to attack.

"Well?" she sneered. "What are you waiting for? Kill me, if that's what you want!"

Shaking his head, the stranger let one hand off of his sword, and gestured for Tira to rise. Apparently, he wasn't planning on attacking until she was up on her feet.

With a frustrated grunt, she leaped to her feet, swung her ring-blade about twice above her head, then readied herself for the attack. The stranger was clearly skilled, and for a moment, Tira wondered if she had made the right decision in sparing him. Every strike, swing and parried blow was perfectly executed. She was on her toes from the get-go: she felt that she wouldn't be able to walk away from this fight alive.

She swung her blade vertically, like a wheel, knocking back the warrior's blade. Another swing, and the warrior was now lying on his back, face up and weapon discarded.

"Unlike you," Tira seethed. "I won't wait for you to get up." She placed the blade of her weapon right over the upper arm of the stranger's right arm. With one quick move, she jumped onto the inner rim of her blade, with both feet pushing down. A loud cry escaped the warrior's lips, which ilicited a smile upon Tira's face. Once there was nothing more between her blade and the ground, she leaped off her blade, picked it up, dripping with blood, and hefted it onto her shoulder.

"Hmph!" she said derisively. "I don't even feel like killing you." Without another word, she kicked the warrior's right arm away from his body. Her blow had hacked his arm completely off.

* * *

Back in Ostrheinsbrug again, only this time she was empty-handed. Her master would scold and beat her, she didn't mind. Usually, being so close to something so powerful, so full of all the destruction and thoughts of mayhem that buzzed about in her head meant more to her than her own personal comfort. Today, however, was different. Something had been nagging at the back of her mind, something that hadn't been fully answered when she first met her master.

That _landsknecht_, the one she had met after she met the man in the cloak. He was a complete and total wuss, afraid of her playful exertions of death. A pathetic little popinjay who didn't deserve to live, so she thought: then she met the master. It was completely undeniable that her master, the Azure Knight, moved like that _landsknecht_, held his weapon just like him, spoke in a similar accent: he was clinging to the appearance of that pitiful _landsknecht_, but why?

It was a clear day, not to her liking. She liked the fog, it made her able to get the jump on her enemy. Today, however, her prey wouldn't be an enemy, but her lord. It seemed rather silly, to think that she could 'get the jump' on such a creature, one as powerful and evil as her lord. But she had to know, she just _had_ to.

Fortune, seemingly, was smiling upon her. The lord of the castle was walking about the grounds, not hidden away in the keep. From her perch up on top of the walls, she could follow his every move, loathing how much he reminded her of that ridiculous _landsknecht_. Without thinking, she leaped from the walls, standing directly before the beast, clad in blue armor.

"Tell me why!" she demanded. "Answer me!"

For a moment, the beast looked at its servant with an uncertain look in its red eyes. With the small, 'deformed' arm, it gripped the shade of Soul Edge and stood, ready for battle.

"What is the meaning of this, wretched servant?" it growled.

"You've been clinging to his visage for too long," she spat back. "Tell me why!"

The Azure Knight attacked, and Tira could barely withstand the powerful blows Soul Edge was raining down upon her. Strong as Eiserne Drossel was, she knew that a lengthy battle against the Evil Sword would surely be her undoing.

"We have our own reasons," the Azure Knight bellowed. A great, ironclad foot kicked her to the ground. "Know your place, b*tch. There will be no next time if you fail me."

Suddenly, a hand grasped around Tira's throat. It squeezed her so tight, she felt like she was going to die. It was all over: the master had no more need of her and she would die.

_But I don't wanna die!_ her jolly side bemoaned.

"Do you now understand?" the Azure Knight growled. "The weak deserve to die, and any who say otherwise should die with them. There is only room enough in this world for the strong."

She nodded, in full, complete and total submission to her master's command. His grip was so strong, she was starting to see stars before her eyes. If he kept this up, there would be no need for her anymore. Suddenly, she was thrown unceremoniously out of her master's hand, her tiny body falling hard upon the stone wall of the castle.

"There will be no more foolishness, I hope," the master said. "One is coming to this place very soon, one who mortally wounded us eight years ago. It is our wish that you deal with her and her children before she becomes a problem. We are done here!"

The Azure Knight walked away, before Tira could deliver to him the fragment of Soul Edge she had retrieved from the usurer's vault. He had the blade that was gathering pieces to itself daily, getting stronger. Was there a reason he hadn't taken it now, or that he had spared her life?

_This woman,_ her jolly thoughts mused. _She has children, and she left them alone to come here! Oh, we should go and do something horrible to them._

**Oh, you're actually getting smarter every day,** the gloomy side mused.

_After all, that's the way of life_, the jolly thoughts replied. _Sooner or later, they'd be exposed to the ugly side of life..._

**The one we're cursed to living in forever, thanks to their damned laws and faiths!**

_It would be an injustice to the universe and to everything humans believe in if we don't do _something_ to hurt them._

**Even their God says life is acquainted with much sorrows,** bemused the gloomy thoughts with sadistic glee.

_It would be right to expose them early on to all the bad things life has to offer,_ the jolly thoughts stated. _In fact, I think their mother is actually doing them a disservice by sheltering them as much as she is._

**That's the truth of it!**

"What a horrible person!" she angrily growled. "It's like she's abusing her children, by not exposing them to the dark side of life, sheltering them like little retards! We _must_ do it, it would only be for their good."

Her manic, sadistic laughter echoed out into day, mocking its beauty with darkness.

* * *

**(AN: Original title was "Death Toll", but since I didn't pay much attention to who Tira was killing and more to what was going on in her mind, especially at the end, I thought a title change was in order [named after a phrase from the chorus of "Harvester of Sorrows", which I don't own]. I feel like I'm flogging a dead horse, but every time I go onto the internet, I am reminded of just how depraved mankind is, and so wrote in this part where Tira is criticizing Sophitia's parentage because she _isn't_ exposing her children to all the evils of the world. Tira is, after all, a villainous character and must needs think like an evil person.)**

**(In case you don't know, those who use spirituality as an excuse/license to do evil are not good people and should not be viewed as such. Take out of Tira's musings that evil people use any rationality to 'excuse' their actions, or to justify them in their mind...though she really doesn't need any justification for murder, since she enjoys it so much.)  
**


	8. The Masterplan

**(AN: What happens in this chapter is about 80 to 90% canon, though slightly altered because the 'canon' as stated on _Soulcalibur _wiki doesn't make much sense, especially concerning _SCV_. I can't divulge too much, because of the similitude of story-telling [aka. I can't give the contents of the story away before I write it, lol]. So just read on, this one has taken a lot of thought and is the subject of _Sophitia_ as well.)  
**

**(Thank you once again, _ThalieXVII_, for your dedicated reviews. I almost forgot to mention in the author's notes in the last chapter that the Manji-tou warrior in question is not dead, only his arm is cut off. That is very important, because he actually survives: see, he is the 'subordinate' in whom Yoshimitsu places much trust and later [spoilers].)  
**

* * *

**The Masterplan**

_1604 AD_

He was still alive! Her heart raced beneath her breast like it had not beat in thirteen years. It was like all of her fears and trials were now worth something. It didn't matter that the brat was missing - raped and murdered, her broken body lying in a ditch somewhere: she could start all over again with her dark lord and master...

The Azure Knight.

The trail was cold, but it led to somewhere in the Kingdom of Hungary. She had known of a certain warlord in Walachia, who had taken up Bvran Castle, that which had once belonged to Vlad III Tepes - a blood-monger whose tales always made her heart race with excitement: said warlord had hailed from France and, according to her master, had been the one to separate him from the host. If he was the one who had defeated the Azure Knight thirteen years ago, he might have been able to take up the blade.

Maybe, just maybe...

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

She had been this way before, on her first journey to Greece and again, following the trail of her lord. Now she was hot on his trail again, eager to know the location of the one who was her kindred spirit, a bringer of darkness and destruction. She had followed his trail to the town of Székesfehérvár, several miles south-west of the capital, Budapest. As usual, she frequented the inn, where she could receive the majority of her information, especially concerning Soul Edge. Such places had once been a threat to her, being a young and nubile woman: nowadays, people didn't mess with her as much as they used to. Though she was thirty, she still looked at least in her late-twenties, but even that was 'too old' for the people who had tried to attack her in the past.

_Maybe Solnhofen wasn't alone_, she thought morosely. _In his...actions. Others do it too, but...for fun!_

**See that? **mused the angry voices. **They set up morals and laws that deny us our happiness, and then go and violate them according to their own fancy. No, a lawless life is the perfect life: chaos and anarchy...**

_Where the strong survive and the weak die at our hands!_

**Exactly.**

While she was sitting by herself, drinking her cup of wine - the beer was awful - she noticed a stranger wearing a wide-brimmed hat pulling up a chair at her table.

"_Bonjour_, _mademoiselle_," the stranger said, speaking his native tongue first.

"Do you speak German?" she asked.

"Of course," he returned. "I have spent some time in that country, searching for...well, you know."

"I do?"

"Or maybe you don't?" he asked. "The one they call 'Dumas'."

"Who?"

"Graf Dumas," the stranger began. "A vassal of King Rudolf II, Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia and Emperor of what's left of the Holy Roman Empire."

"Impressive titles!" Tira mocked playfully.

"Pah!" the stranger spat. "He is a weak lord, does not discipline his graf. He lets him run wild, doing all sorts of murders and harassment of the peasants of Hungary. Dumas, now he's the power in this land: goes about in blue armor with a huge sword, sets fear into the hearts of his enemies. They think he's the Azure Knight."

If Tira had not been paying attention before, she definitely was all ears after she heard those two words.

"The Azure Knight, you say?" she asked, trying to sound sweet, inviting, curious and, if at all possible, innocent.

"He died thirteen years ago," the stranger said. "I know because I was there, I saw it happen. Now, if that's all you wish to know, I must be off. I have completed my business here and now my time is being wasted. _Au revoir_ _et a'Diable._"

She smiled at his rudeness: most idiots she encountered said _Adieu_, as though they were actually wishing God to be with her. The nerve of them! Like they really believed it themselves. Plagues, mass genocide from the Azure Knight - such that had plagued Germany thirteen years ago - and short, meaningless lives.

**Any smart person,** her gloomy thoughts seethed. **Would have given up any such notions long ago.**

* * *

Denevér, a castle on the north-western border of the Great Hungarian Plain. This was the fief of Graf Dumas, the place to which she had been directed. After her meeting with the Frenchman, it didn't take much asking around for her to discover where the one known as the Black Graf existed. His feats were practically legendary all over Hungary, no one in any town had not heard about him, and many spoke in fearful whispers, as though he were a name as feared as Ostrheinsburg had been for Germany.

The castle was a sight to behold. Its high towers rose to the sky taller than the topless spires of Ostrheinsburg, loftier and grander than anything she had ever seen. Though she had infiltrated many mansions in her time with the Birds of Passage, this was, perhaps, the greatest one she had ever entered. She came almost brazenly up to the castle, walked through the front gate and demanded the guards take her to the keep. When they rose to block her path, she drew out Eiserne Drossel and hacked them down.

No one would get in between her and her lord. With blade drawn, she ran through what she presumed to be the keep. A great hall of stone stood before her, adorned with tapestries featuring the two-headed black phoenix upon a field of gold streaming down from the ceiling. She ran forward, heedless of the guards that approached to stop her way. Her lord was so close.

"Who dares come before Graf Dumas?" a voice, all too human, asked.

Tira was now held back by two large guards in armor, one hand stretched out to her lord. He looked strange, different than how she had seen him before: too human for her liking. In fact, all things considered, he looked strikingly like someone else she had met.

"Frenchy?" she asked.

"Is that how you greet the Graf Dumas?" the lord demanded. He nodded to one of his guards, who kicked her in the stomach with his knee.

"My sincerest apologies, my lord!" she sobbed. "I have traveled many long miles, spent years in torment and darkness. But now, I have returned to your side, your humble and obedient servant!" She knelt down before the graf.

"And what makes you worthy to serve me?" the armor-clad Graf Dumas queried.

"B-Because I'm your servant!" she returned. "Don't you remember the letter? T-The shard?"

"'Shard?'" he asked. "Don't speak of such things out loud." He then turned to one of those gathered about the large throne.

"There are no secrets before the servants of the Emperor," he said aloud, addressing them.

"This is completely absurd!" Tira exclaimed.

"You object to the servants of the Emperor?" Dumas asked, turning back to her.

"Of course I object!" she growled. "They're completely useless, immaterial. Just kill them and eat their souls, like you used to!"

"You're a fool, whatever you may think you might be!" the Graf said proudly. "We must be diplomatic, we must work _with_ the lords in order to achieve our goals."

"Is that why you send your agents to do all of your dirty work for you?" she asked angrily. "Because you're too cowardly to do things yourself?"

"A true lord never faces the enemy on the field of battle," stated the Graf. "He always sends the pawns to do his bidding."

It was such an aberration. She looked upon this Graf, this pretender in blue armor, as she knew the peoples of the world looked upon her. This was such a joke. The lord she knew and loved would never bother with diplomacy, soliciting the ambassadors and servants of kings and emperors like a common whore of nobility. There was no hunger in those red eyes of his, no burning desire to devour the whole world, to cover everything in darkness. She saw the sword that sat in its sheath at his side, large and radiating with power: the same energy she had felt and come to love as soon as she became intimately familiar with the shards. That was too much to believe.

Soul Edge was alive...and in the hands of this pretender, this petty potentate, this bastard, just as ridiculous as that German popinjay. What kind of name even _was_ Graf Dumas anyhow, she wondered: it didn't sound Swedish, but this blue-fool was certainly stupid enough to be one.

She spat in the direction of the Graf. Before his guards could retaliate, she broke free and ran out of the castle as fast as she could, away from the nightmare that was not.

_That can't be him!_ her jolly thoughts bemoaned, as she sat on the bank of a small creek, banging her fists against her forehead in anger. _He's empty: no lust, no desire for death, destruction, blood and mayhem. He's an imposter! I will never accept him!_

From the depths of the rushing creek, she thought she saw her reflection remove her hands from off her face. Or maybe she had done so to see what her reflection was saying? For it was speaking words that were not coming from out of her mouth. They were from the _other_ one.

**In that case, stop your whining. We've prepared another vessel for Soul Edge ourselves all these years, haven't we?**

_But...but she's gone! Thirteen years of planning, of preparation, dealing with that whining little brat wasted!_

**Get a hold of yourself!** her reflection shouted. **We'll just have to find her again.**

The plan. It had been an old plan, one that had been in preparation for over thirteen years, all gone up in smoke that one night in Naples. Now she had no other choice: the being that possessed Soul Edge was as far from the Azure Knight as that idiot German had been. It was now up to her, as it had been for the past thirteen years, to take care of the fate of the Blade.

* * *

Ostrheinsburg was blanketed in fog: just what she loved. Her master had told her this woman would arrive, and she had taken every precaution for this first encounter. The bridges were drawn, leaving only a lone ferry docked on the eastern shore. From her perch up on the walls, she espied a woman in a heavy traveling jacket pushing herself off into the river. She was exactly as her master had described her: average height, fair skin and blond hair, with a sorrowful pallor cast over her face.

_Here she comes!_ her jolly thoughts exclaimed. _To abandon her children and travel all this way..._ She let a bit of laughter escape her lips. It wasn't a giveaway, for the fog still concealed her approach. Poor, stupid, superstitious woman would be more fearful than alert with that. As the ferry passed under neath the stone bridge, she jumped off the bridge and landed on the raft, which gave an uncomfortable lurch backwards with the sudden added weight. It quickly leveled out, and she then turned to the woman and addressed her.

"You're such a horrible mother, sheesh!" she exclaimed, in her usual mocking tone, a smile stretched across her face.

"What do you know about me?" the woman retorted, anger in her voice.

"I know why you're here," Tira replied, her voice seething with loathing over this woman's stupidity. "I also know that you abandoned your children back home to come here. And you failed: Soul Edge isn't here." Suddenly, a thought entered Tira's mind that made her excitement uncontainable. Her mood swung back to cheery and she said with a wicked smile on her face: "Say, I'd really like to play with your children. After all, they must be _so_ sad and lonely, all alone, without Mommy to be there for them!"

"I won't let you near my family!" the woman said, brandishing a shield on her left arm.

"Ha ha ha ha ha! Says the mother who ran away from her children, leaving them all alone and defenseless!"

The woman said something about her motherhood being the reason she fought, but Tira wasn't listening anymore. All that sentimental bullshit made her horribly uncomfortable, and it meant to her that there was nothing more to be said. She hefted Eiserne Drossel off her shoulder and began circling her prey, like a hawk enclosing upon a rabbit. She waited for the moment, and then attacked. But the woman she fought was more than appearances, that was certainly true enough. Tira had thought that, by reason of her soft voice and womanly bearing, she was just a weak mother who had never picked up a sword in her life.

She was immediately proven dead wrong. This 'weak mother' moved like a skilled veteran, feet planted firmly on the raft, using sword and shield as though they were extensions of her body. But she was only human, and would respond as humans did to taunts and insults. So she danced about, throwing blows in and out of the fray, whistling, laughing and saying whatever hurtful things came to mind to un-man this fighter (if un-man could indeed be said about a woman fighter).

"Naughty child," the woman said with a condescending tone. "You shouldn't be playing with swords."

"Don't patronize me! I'm not a child, dammit!" That set off _her_ darker side, and she attacked with the fury of a cornered tigress. Blow after blow she rained down upon the woman, who parried, guarded and blocked them all. For a moment the fighting lulled down, the woman pointed her sword in Tira's direction.

"Stand down," she said. "There's no reason for us to fight. Don't you have a place to call home?"

Why the nerve! She hadn't such place since the greve, and she would never go back to that. It was all so restricting and inhibiting and just plain boring. With a giggle, she replied: "Home is where the killing's at!"

But the woman had more to say. "You jeer me on, you laugh and joke at the thought of death and murder, but you're not truly happy. You've never been truly happy in your entire life. I...I'm so sorry."

For once, she didn't have a response. For every murder she had committed, for every gallon of blood shed at her hands, there had been joy, she had felt happy. But the truth was that once the blood was washed away, the faces of the dying caught in the throes of death continued to haunt her, begging, pleading why their lives had been of such little worth to her. She needed more, and so sought out more people to kill, more harm to cause, but that only made the faces more numerous and angrier. That was the real reason she feared death: because once she was dead, she knew that she would be within their power, just as weak as those she had killed, no better than them.

**We can't think this way!** her darker thoughts growled. **It's like you have a conscience or some sissy shit like that. Just shake it off and keep to your mission.**

"Boring!" she sang, but not for long. She pushed the woman's sword aside with Eiserne Drossel, then angrily retorted: "I'm annoyed at you! Let's find out just how dark your blood is!"

Strange it was that Tira had tried to goad the woman into acting rashly, thereby exposing a weak-spot in the heat of battle and thereby bring her life to an end, and yet it was _she_, Tira, who was responding in fury to what the woman had said, and that without even one provocative word of insult thrown at her.

**This is absolutely pointless! **screamed her angry thoughts. **Just leave and do what we have to do.**

She noticed they were approaching another bridge of the castle, from which dangled a heavy chain that had been either ignored or long forgotten. She jumped up, gripping the heavy iron rings in her hands as she pulled herself off the boat and began climbing the chain, hand over hand, until she was finally at the top. With a skip in her step, she hastily strode to the other end of the bridge, glaring at the wooden raft with contempt.

"When the time is right," she growled, her voice carrying over the rush of the river. "I'll come for your children!" A giggle indicated that she was once again happy. "It'll be so much fun!"

She cursed herself, being unable to finish this woman off quickly enough. But it mattered not, the hen had escaped, flown beyond her grasp, but the nest was still there for the taking. The master told her where this woman lived, and the patterns of her travel clothes and her accent gave her away. Tira turned her eyes to the south-east, readying herself for her next journey.

* * *

Greece was far too hot for her liking. Having grown up in the cold of Denmark, the Lowlands and northern Germany, she had never been greatly exposed to the weather of the Great Sea. The salty smell of the sea was strong in the wind; but it was not the cold, billowing gales of the North Sea, that bespoke of the tales of old, of Northern men bathing in the blood of slaughtered foes, laughing and howling with glee as they cut down the weak servants of the Cross. This wind was different, and she didn't like it.

But she had a plan, one that brought her here to this mountainous land, full of nothing but goats and philosophy. Her master needed their children out of the way, but she knew she couldn't just walk up to the door of this woman's house, knock three times and ask to take their children away with a smile on her face.

That became apparent an afternoon ago, when the sun was overcast with clouds, reminding Tira of the lands of the North. Her Watchers, the black birds that served the Azure Knight and had now been given to her as pets, gave her the information she needed. Whether it was just in the form of written words, or whether she could, like Sigurd of old, understand the language of the birds, she never told anyone, not even her lord. But she received what she needed from them, be it information or shards of the Sword.

She had just sent off Hugin with a wee kiss, and knelt down over a brook to take a drink of water when she noticed her reflection. It had been one of the few times since her time with the greve that she had ever looked at herself. Her hair, which was naturally dark like the dead of night, she had dyed during her time with the greve and his daughter. She had learned from their servants how to make dyes that could be placed in the hair and change its color: once she had left them, she dyed her hair a color that was so unnatural, the Birds of Passage would never know that she was the same wisp of a dark-haired raven who had once been among them.

Her hair was now so greasy and dirty, the bright shade of grassy green now looked very dark and dull, like the needles of a pine tree. Her clothes were, by choice, also green, but so frayed and torn since she had last looked upon herself, it was almost embarassing. Though she didn't care what other people thought of her - they usually ended up dead if they voiced said thoughts in her presence - she could see the half-circle under-carriage of her breasts peeking out at the bottom of what had been her torn and tattered top. She couldn't have them getting loose on her in the middle of battle: not that they were big enough to cause much discomfort if they had, not like that blond Greek woman, but they were also her weak point, soft and sensitive to touch and right above her heart.

_We can't have this now, can we?_ she thought. _We'll have to find ourselves some new clothes._

**Not yet, we won't! **growled the other thoughts. **We have our mission ahead of us.**** Clothes come later.**** Eyes open now, somebody's coming!**

She looked about, knowing better than to argue with the voices in her head. They usually had her best interests at heart, even though their voices were mean and cruel. Her hands flexed about Eiserne's arc as she looked this way and that, trying to see who it was who was foolish enough to try and sneak up on her. Behind her back, she could faintly detect the crunching of dead leaves and gravel as someone was approaching from behind. Without making a sound, she turned about, Eiserne Drossel screaming for blood.

The one who stood before her was the strangest woman she had ever seen. She was as tall as a man, with well-toned arms that looked like they could break Tira in half. She was clad in armor, very old armor that was not like anything Tira had seen before. In her right hand was a sword and on her left arm was a shield.

The warrior woman said something angrily in her mother tongue, something Tira did not understand. It didn't matter, though. In a moment, none of this would matter. She leaped for Tira, taking her up in her arms as though she were a disobedient little child. Arms stronger than iron held Tira down, pinned against the warrior woman's breastplate. But Tira was laughing, for this was just what she had in mind. Though the warrioress was tall and large, she, Tira, was small and her arms thin. They could slide out of her grip, reach down into her pocket, and remove what she had kept with her all this time.

One cut across the neck, unprotected by her armor, was all it took. The evil essence of the Sword infected the wound, bringing the tall, strong Amazon to her knees. She let go of Tira, who now gloated before her, holding the fragment of Soul Edge towards her as though it were a crucifix and she a priest, victorious in his exorcism.

"Tell me everything," she demanded. "Tell me everything you know."

* * *

**(AN: Lots of stuff in this chapter. But maybe I should hold off from many other lengthy chapters, since I need to stretch this story out for at least 10 chapters or more.)**

**(Nightmare...what can I say? There is a cult of _Soul Calibur_ fans who believe that Raphael is Graf Dumas, and, therefore, the Azure Knight. Or maybe I am the cult that believes he is _not_ Nightmare. Anywho, I stated as much in this chapter, further confusing the issue by showing Raphael [that character who appeared in the tavern in...that one Hungarian town] and then having Graf Dumas look like him, but not be him exactly.)**

**(Lots of controversial things said in this chapter also. Once again I remind my audience that they reflect the character of Tira, not this author. Though Tira is obviously a character all of herself, I somewhat modeled her personality after a Danish person I know: she is extremely misanthropic and racist, especially against Swedes, and that served as a character basis for our morally ambiguous [if not downright evil] character Tira. Speaking of which, we also get a rare look into the mind of an addict: that moment, during the battle, was something I felt needed to be said. I don't think I could do anymore psychiatric analysis of Tira without compromising her character too much.)**


	9. Broken

**(AN: New chapter)  
**

**(This part is probably the most confusing. Who is _really_ the orchestrator of Tira's grand scheme? Is it her or is it Soul Edge? I'll leave that for you to decide.)  
**

**(By the way, I totally messed up on the capital of Hungary in the last chapter [it is Budapest, not Bucharest]. I fixed that, but nobody caught it! lol)  
**

* * *

**Broken**

She had told her everything. The Amazon woman, who called herself Azola, said that she had taught Sophitia, the young Greek woman, how to wield a sword. Furthermore, she knew where she lived, and how many children she had: only two, a girl named Pyrrha and a little boy named Patroklos.

"Oh, goody!" she exclaimed with glee. "She's got two, so she won't mind if I take one." She broke off into laughter, then turned to her prey, clutching the shard of Soul Edge in her hand.

"Listen to me very carefully," she ordered. "I want you to find the oldest, the girl, and bring her to me."

Azola left without a single word of protest, or any retorts at what she had said about Sophitia's children. It amazed her as well, seeing how willing this strong Amazon was to her mere suggestions. She looked at the piece of the Sword in her hand, wondering if it had some greater power than she had been led to believe at first. Looking at it gave her so many delicious thoughts of murder, new ways to torture her enemies, to wring out of their throats the screams of utter hopelessness that made her feel so..._alive_.

But she hadn't known what it would do here, only that she was told by _it_ to do that. It was in her hand in the heat of the battle and _it_ commanded her to do this. The rest seemed to fall into place. She would have to ask her lord how this had happened.

_No need for questions,_ a voice spoke to her. She thought it was from within, but her mind was silent. She felt the object in her hand grow hotter, and she looked down and saw that it was on fire, but she could not throw it out of her hand.

"What is this?" she asked.

_With every piece, every fragment of the blade returned,_ the voice said. _The Inferno takes life again. But the blade must be kept alive, it hungers for souls, for a new host._

"New host?"

_The body we currently inhabit is weak,_ the Inferno spoke from the shard. _It is the feeble construct of an arrogant sorcerer, melded into the armor of the last wielder. _

"What happens if we can't find you a new host?"

_The blade will be lost..._

"No!" she cried. "I can't let that happen...I won't! At the very last, I..."

_Yes?_ the Inferno queried hungrily.

"I would give myself to you!" she replied reverently. "Please, enter me! Receive my body as your own and we shall kill whoever we wish!" She laughed, sudden merriment in her heart. "We will burn the world together, the only two reveling in such beautiful destruction!"

_Intriguing as it sounds, that is not how it must be. Your task is to secure a new host, should the current one prove inadequate._

Tira was shaking on the inside, but she didn't betray an ounce of her true feelings. For this weak thing, this piece of metal, to say that the Azure Knight was nothing, a feeble construct: the words of that white-robed man she met in her first journey to Ostrheinsburg came back to her mind. If she was serving a puppet, just as feeble as anything else, then what did that mean for her?

_No!_ she thought. _He is real. He's the only one who understands me, who relishes in what I enjoy. He _has_ to be real, he just _has _to be._

"As you wish," she said to the shard out loud. She would do as it pleased on the surface, harvest this little girl as her master and the Sword had ordered. But she didn't want it to end this way. She knew the Azure Knight would be triumphant, in whatever he would do. The paradise of darkness and evil that he would bring about was all she had to go on, the only light at the end of a dark tunnel.

It was her hope, if she actually believed in such things.

* * *

Azola returned as promised sometime deep in the night, pulling a toddler with reddish blond hair behind her with her thumb in her mouth. Tira was amazed that it had happened so easily. This woman obviously had been the right choice, one who could enter the Alexandros' family house in trust and steal their child.

"Here she is, master," Azola said. "As promised."

"Excellent!" Tira laughed. "Now go and remain in the village until she arrives. When she does, make sure you tell her that her child won't survive without Soul Edge. If you remember nothing else, remember that!"

"Yes, master!" Azola bowed, then departed without a word.

"What's your name?" the tiny, three-year-old child babbled up at the tall, silly-looking green-haired woman.

Tira knelt down to look at the little child, feeling all sorts of hatred for it. Here was someone who had a mother, a father, even a brother, all the things anyone could ever ask for: all of the things she was denied. If it were up to her, she would break the child's scrawny little neck in her own hands right now and relish in killing something so sweet, innocent and trusting.

"Tira," she replied gloomily.

"What's dat you're holding?" baby Pyrrha asked, taking her thumb out of her mouth for a brief moment to ask.

"Do you like it?" Tira asked, suddenly feeling very happy. This was just too easy. "Oh, I'm glad. What's your name, little girl?"

"Pyrrha." the girl answered, sticking her thumb back into her mouth.

"Well, Pyrrha," Tira said. "You're coming with me. Hey, how about a story? Do you want to hear a bed-time story?"

"Yes!" Pyrrha nodded emphatically.

"Once upon a time," Tira began. "There was a little girl. On a moonlit night, the little girl went into a deep, dark forest. The poor little girl was lost in the mist and was never heard from again!"

* * *

The deed was done, and now they were back in Ostrheinsburg, resting from the ordeal. Tira, meanwhile, was restlessly pacing the walls of the castle, eyes filled with longing for something in the east. Her lord had gone that way and had not returned, and she was growing anxious. The words of the Sword and of the man in white plagued her mind, confusing her so much that she began to forget. Whole segments of her memory seemed to vanish, return for a moment, and then vanish again. She didn't even know if she was acting upon her own direction or being controlled by that Sword.

_Free will is for the weak,_ she thought. _I__ don't need that_, _not when my lord has so many tasks for me to accomplish._

**Don't be stupid,** the voices argued. **You can't just accept everything he tells you. What if the Sword is right, and the days of the Azure Knight are numbered?**

_No, it can't be!_ she rejected. _It just_ can't!_ I won't let it happen!_

**And what will you do to prevent that?**

What would she do was not important. What had she _not_ done was more to the point. What had happened in the dungeons of Ostrheinsburg, the rituals held, the spirits conjured, was so great that even Tira refused to bring it back to memory. She intentionally shut those memories out of her mind, willing herself to forget them: it was so awesome and terrible, she feared what would happen if she tried to remember it. But she had done what she had sought out to do; the shard of Soul Edge was now part of Pyrrha's being. Any memories she had of her past life were gone.

_I've done to her what this world did to me_, she replied. _I took from her the memory of her mother, father and her brother, as though they never existed!_

**It's not enough,** seethed the voices. **It never will be until you open your eyes...**

"And what?!" she shouted. It was the first time she had addressed her voices openly, as though they were real and not just inside her head. "My place is at my lord's side, not here in this dank, broken castle!"

**Why? So you can be bonded to another master? All we need is each other, right?**

"No!" she returned. "No, I-I _need_ him! He's the only one in this world that understands our urge to kill, to cause suffering."

**Idiot! It's the Sword that's the master, not him!**

"I refuse to believe it! It's just not so!" To accept that was worse than death, in her eyes. It would mean that nothing had changed, that she was still that frightened little child, going wherever the Birds of Passage demanded. But there was something that she did not say, that she did not share, not even with her own mind.

She _wanted_ to feel controlled, dominated and ruled by another. She was afraid of freedom, ever since she left the home of the greve. Living on her own meant that she was just a vagabond, going from one murderous high to another, knowing that she could never find rest. She couldn't live without killing someone, and once she did, there would be no rest for her in the towns wherein she had committed murder. She wanted to be with someone else who shared her love of destruction, and if it meant being a servant...

So be it.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

Tira locked the little girl in one of the cellars of the castle, making sure there were no ways of escape. It was part of her exposure to all the evils with which she, Tira, had grown accustom. A few weeks or months in solitude would make her pliable to suggestion and eager for companionship. She wouldn't care who from, just as long as it would be someone. But she didn't have time to baby-sit the little thumb-sucking brat. She had to be at the side of her lord.

Following him would be easy. Wherever there was destruction and chaos, she was certain that she was going the right way. The path led her east, far away from the confines of Germany and the burgs with which she had become familiar. When she entered Hungary, there were rumors of war going on against a dark lord in Walachia. War usually meant death, and she made her way thither: it would be easy to sneak into the medical tents and kill several dozen wounded and dying. It was merciful, really: more soldiers died under the surgeon's knife than from gunshot, so her presence wouldn't be noticed.

She was also much better at not being noticed. Before leaving Ostrheinsburg, she had stolen a uniform, which she had 'modified' and now wore instead of her torn, green-stained rags. It consisted of a long-sleeved shirt and pants, all of them red and lined with thin white stripes, small enough not to be garish. Her modifications included a collar made of white dove feathers as well as hacking the pants up to about a hand's breath above the knee, and lining the gap with feathers as well. She now wore comfortable leather boots, rather than the steel ones that made her slow-footed. Her hair, also, had grown so long that only the ends were dark green. To this end, she stole a darkening agent and dyed her hair a more natural dark color and tied it back into two, easily-manageable ponytails. Along with this ensemble came a new pair of gloves, which she had outfitted with iron gauntlets, complete with gloves whose fingers were more like claws. Gloves were key with handling Eiserne Drossel, for she had learned very quickly that she could easily cut herself if she mishandled her weapon, and gloves ensured that, even if, in the heat of battle, she did grab it incorrectly, she did not sustain great damage.

_I don't know what awaits me in the east,_ she thought. _I mustn't go unprepared._

With new equipment, and a sharpening stone to keep Eiserne battle-ready, Tira entered the easternmost lands of the Kingdom of Poland. This land, also, was in warfare, but against the Cossacks, rather than the Azure Knight. The language, also, was strange and she understood nothing of what they said. The weather grew colder, and as such, she was much moodier than usual. But still she pressed on, following the trail of destruction which she knew belonged to one and only one creature.

* * *

By and by, the steppes about her gave way to tall, wooded mountains. Some of their crowns passed the clouds or were covered in silvery-white snow. Here the air was cool, the sky was clear and a thin layer of snow covered the ground. It mattered little to Tira, especially since she saw no birds in the sky. It was far too empty, too bright, too plain and boring. _A nice splatter of blood across the white snow would go a long way here_, she mused. But there was no one else around, and the path of destruction had led her to this land, so she must needs continue forward.

As she scaled the height of one tall, rocky mountain, she saw in the distance the spires of a great and lofty cathedral, nestled here in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. The trail had long since disappeared, and she saw nothing against going there, if only to destroy it or see if she could see something from the tops of its spires.

It was a longer walk than she had anticipated, and the cathedral proper was situated on the very top of the next mountain. As she approached, the tell-tale sound of rushing water was heard coming from the tall building. This was strange, but she paid it no mind as she clambered up the mountain-side, looking for some way into the cathedral. At last, a grand staircase all of shining, white marble was seen just a few more feet up the side of the mountain.

Once she reached the stairs, it was easy to walk the rest of the way to the cathedral. What she saw took away her breath: even she, who hated churches and anything to do with God. The cathedral was large, almost larger than life, flooded with light from over a dozen stained-glass windows. The music of a thousand fountains echoed through the high-vaulted marble halls, for this place was built such that water flowed through it naturally, in canals of marble and _lapis lazuli_ into basins of gold. Into one such basin she knelt down, reached her hand into it and brought up a meager drought of cold water to quench her thirst. It had been a long walk and her throat felt as though it were on fire once she reached the top of those stairs, not to mention the mountain.

As the ripples faded away from the surface of the water within the basin, Tira looked upon her reflection and noticed something strange. It was not the tiny mole, so-called "beauty mark", that poked its head out of her cheek just a few inches below her right eye: it was the eyes. They were both an unnatural color, like violets streaked with veins of silver.

Suddenly, the cathedral echoed with noise, the clashing of steel upon steel, the sounds of battle. With curiosity in her heart, Tira made her way to where the sounds of battle were the loudest. Down one hall she went, where the sound of clanging metal echoed suddenly behind her as before. With a quick turn, she saw an iron cage had fallen from the ceiling. Some trap by the builders of the cathedral: it mattered not, for she had escaped it, and before her awaited the battle.

Round a corner she went and came face to face with the fiercest battle she had ever seen. On the one hand was her lord, the Azure Knight, cloaked in darkness, with Soul Edge in his hands. On the other hand was the German popinjay, all in armor, with a shining sword that made her heart stop as she gazed upon it. Something was wrong with that sword: it was no normal blade, but seemed to emanate an essence of its own, almost as though it were alive as well as Soul Edge. No one had told her that there were _two_ spirit swords in existence.

She became distinctly aware that more was happening than what the eyes alone could see. The air itself, slashed, beaten and ripped apart by their swinging swords, seemed tense and heavy, ready to explode at a moment's notice. The by-blows of their blades, clashing against the marble of the cathedral, tore open huge gashes gleaming with pale crystal or burning with fire. The ground shook where their feet stepped and it felt as though the mountain were heaving in time with their blows.

_I have to do something!_ Tira thought.

**What can you do?** the voices replied. **You see what kind of destruction they're causing. You'll just be another casualty if you step in now.**

_But I...I _have_ to!_ she returned. _I...I_...

**No, you don't! You...you...**

She felt strange, as though her head were a drum and two strong men were beating her temples with mighty hammers. The voices were silent for a moment, and then started clamoring all at once.

**Leave, that's what you have to do! Live today, kill that popinjay tomorrow!**

_I can't leave!_

**You have to leave!**

_But he's my_ _lord!_

**We need no lord or law but ourselves!**

_No, I can't go back to that! It's dark, cold and so lonely!_

**We can build a new world, all on our own!**

_Please, leave me alone! I didn't ask you to come here..._

**Leave? You will never be free of us!**

"Agh! Can't you all just shut up?!" she growled.

Pain was blossoming across her forehead like a burning crack. The two drums were beating harder and faster, in time with the swords. It felt like she was being buffeted back and forth, like a rag-doll in the hands of a overly-playful child. Her head was burning like fire: she pounded her fists against her forehead, in vain trying to dull the pain, but she might as well tried to move the stars with her hands. She fell to her knees, barely standing against such mighty, awesome power being now unleashed. Her knees buckled, and then she was writhing about, heaving back and forth. It felt as though her head would split in two. She cried for release, for death, for anything, but there was a sudden flash of light and she remembered no more.

* * *

**(AN: Oh noes! What has become of Tira?)**

**(Tira is exposed first not only to the malevolent will of Soul Edge, but is introduced to Soul Calibur as well. It's a head-scratcher, this chapter, because it suggests that Tira is not entirely in control of her actions. That's a question which I pose to you, reader[s]: who is really in control, is it Soul Edge, longing to sustain itself, or Tira, longing to sustain herself/her master?)**

**(So far we've had almost two chapters completely in Tira's past. When the next one gets published, it will be in the future timeline. Hopefully that will be soon, but I start my third year of college this week, so I don't know.)**


	10. Pyrrha's Story

**(AN: So far, we haven't left the perspective of our antagonizing protagonist: this chapter will be different. There will be a brief return to the primary character because, after all, we need to see how she comes about doing...well, you'll see.)  
**

* * *

**Pyrrha's Story**

_1604 AD_

Clean the house, that was her duty. She wasn't really that good at it, to be completely honest. Of course, there would be some reprimands, but those never ended well. She whined and said "I'm sorry!" so much that those who reprimanded her either gave up, or got so annoyed that they punished her for _that_ rather than for her failure. So it had been for four years of her short life.

But the master was kind. If he was around when she made a mistake, he would often tell her that such things happened and give her lenience. The chief of the servants was not happy with this, but the master kept his own council and so the young girl's life was easier.

One day in October, the young girl was busy with her cleaning. Though she wasn't very good at it, it was the only thing she could really do. Her cooking was awful and she had absolutely no skill at anything that a servant would require, so she was kept where she was at, scrubbing and sweeping floors. While she was busy, the master appeared in the door-way.

"Nice work you've done," he greeted. His presence surprised the girl who jumped back with a gasp, knocking over the bucket of water she had been using to clean the floor and spilling its contents all over the floor.

"Oh, master! I...I'm sorry!" she begged.

"No need," he said. He then picked up the bucket and placed it aside, before offering her his hand and helping her to her feet.

"Thank you, master." she said, eyes averted.

"Please, call me Jurgis," he returned.

"Yes, maste...I mean, Jurgis." she stammered. "If you please, I must get back to work."

"Oh, I'll just be a minute," he said. "I want to talk to you."

"Oh?"

"Yes," he leaned against the wall and thus began. "I understand today is your birthday."

"Yes, master. I mean, yes, Jurgis."

"How old does that make you, then?"

"S-sixteen."

"Let me ask you something else," Jurgis continued. "In the four years you've been here, have you ever wanted anything?"

"No, mast..." Jurgis held up his hand in dismissal.

"Have you ever been unhappy?"

"I don't know, master," she replied. "Uh, may I continue my chores, master?"

"Not yet," he replied. "I have a few more questions for you: you are my servant, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And bound to obey my wishes?"

"Yes, sir. Uh, where is this going?"

"I find myself in need of a good, riding companion," he said. At this, the maid-servant blushed profusely. She had, at least once or twice before, walked in on some of the servants riding one another. It was rather embarrassing, both for them and for her. No matter how much she apologized, they never looked at her the same for at least three weeks.

"I meant horses," he laughed.

"But I...I don't know how to ride!"

"Just the same," he said. "I would be glad of your company. I'll have the stable-boy lead your horse right beside mine."

"But I don't have anything to wear," she said. "Except this..." She indicated to her dress, a plain brown dress with a white apron and a little white bonnet to keep her hair pulled back. Not exactly riding material.

"You can ride side-saddle," Jurgis said. "Or, if you prefer, I have some old riding boots that might fit you. What do you say, would you give your master this one pleasure?"

"I...I don't know," she stammered. "I...don't suppose it would hurt."

"Thank you, my dear," he said, then prepared to take his leave. Today would definitely be different.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

The day was cool and moist from the afternoon drizzle. The air was fresh, clean from the downpour. Two horses were making their way across a wide field full of fruit vines. On the one horse was Jurgis, the master and lord of his manor. Young, dark-haired and clean-shaven, he cut quite the impressive figure for a nobleman. At his side was his maid-servant, dressed in a clean white dress with a leather corset and riding boots that went up her tiny white skirt. She was sitting upon a horse with a look of abject dread of the huge, brunette mare upon her face. Even though she was being led by a stable-boy, she was still shaking in the saddle.

"Easy now," Jurgis said. "She's fully broken, she won't harm you."

"I'm sorry," she replied. "It's just that I've never ridden before."

"Nothing to be ashamed of," he returned, then turned to his horse, petting the mane. After a period of silence, broken only by the maid's whimpers atop the steady horse, he looked back at her.

"You know, you've been in my service for four years," he began. "And I still don't know your name."

"Pyrrha," she replied. "Pyrrha Alexandra."

"You're from Greece?" he asked.

"I don't know," she shook her head.

"You speak German quite well."

"I really don't know, I've never learned. I just listened and tried to say what made sense, I guess."

"Do you have any family?"

"Family?" She asked, as though she had never heard the word before.

"Yes," he replied with a slight chuckle. "You know, mother, father, brothers, sisters. That sort of thing."

"I don't know," she whined.

"Well, everyone has to have at least a mother and a father."

"I don't know."

"Orphaned, eh?"

"I don't know."

"My questions seem to be upsetting you," Jurgis said. "Should I stop?"

"I-I don't...whoa!" She swayed in the saddle for a moment, then fell completely off. Her horse wasn't even running, just trotting at a comfortable pace. Jurgis immediately dismounted and ran to her side.

"Are you alright?"

"I think so," she replied. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall!"

"It's okay, it's alright," he assured her. "It was your first time, it was bound to happen."

They were both uncomfortably close to each other. It was the first time they had ever been this close. Pyrrha began feeling things she had never felt before, delightfully painful feelings in her chest that made breathing quite difficult. All she could think about was her master's face and...

"No," she shook her head, slowly pushing herself up to her feet. "I...I'm sorry, master. I think I should go back to my chores."

"Why?" he asked.

Pyrrha sobbed, afraid of telling him what had happened, what had _been_ happening as long as she could remember. But he was her master, and she was obliged to tell him.

"People get hurt when they get close to me," she began, her voice quivering with fear. "In Germany they called me _Der Mädchen von_ _Trauer_, the Bringer of Woe. I...I never meant to hurt them, I don't even remember doing it. But every time someone would take me in or try to help me, they always ended up dead, with their blood on my hands!" She broke down into the most pitiful sobs one had ever heard.

"Hey, hey, there's no need to cry," he said. He had no handkerchief on himself, so he used his own hands to wipe the tears from Pyrrha's eyes. "That was your old life, you left that behind when my father purchased you."

For a moment, he paused as well, feeling himself incapable of words. She merely looked at him in awe with her large, green eyes.

"Listen," he began. "There's something I would like to ask you, and now that you're old enough, I suppose now would be the right time to do it. Will you listen?"

"You're my master," she replied. "I have to..."

"No, please," he shook his head. "None of this 'master servant' nonsense. For now, you are just you and I am just me: you're not obliged to answer any question or agree to anything you don't like. Now, will you listen to what I have to say?"

"Yes...Jurgis."

"Well," he began. "Over the past four years, I've grown rather fond of you. Oh, maybe 'fond' isn't the right word...affectionate, perhaps. I have a proposition for you, and I hope you'll accept it."

"What is it?"

"I would like to marry you."

She gasped in shock, both hands covering her mouth. "But, that's not..."

"Please, just hear me out," he said. "I know that, because of my status, it's frowned upon for a noble to marry a servant. So, for the next two years, I will pay you for your work. At the end of those two years, you will be free and we will be married...if you would have me, that is."

Little Pyrrha was shaking so violently, her hands over her mouth and tears welling up at the bottom of her emerald-green eyes. She feared to say yes, for she knew all too well the fate of those who got close to her. Even so, she did not wish to say no. She herself had grown fond of her master over the years as well; he was nice to her and for four years, nothing had happened. Maybe, just this once, the curse was finally over.

"Yes, Jurgis," she nodded sheepishly. "I will."

* * *

For months she had searched for the one who had stolen her pet. She threatened, bribed and killed to get the information which had led her to the dead end of the Dampierre Company. With weary resignation, she had wandered the world, killing for what little pleasure it had given her. Life seemed to have no meaning anymore. The angry, gloomy voice in her head kept her alive, but she relished in the kindness and joviality of the jolly voice. After the incident in Hungary, she became determined to find her quarry again.

But four years had passed, and many had forgotten about what happened in Venice with a child, a nothing and a nobody. But she did as she had in the past, and more than a few of the Dampierre Company workers felt that they were not paid enough to give their lives for their master. These gave her the information she needed, until she was back on the road to Hungary again.

She arrived at the manor of one, Herceg Jurgis Kovacs, a wealthy young man who owned fields and horses. His father, her sources had told her, had made a purchase from the Dampierre Company four years ago. What made it more important was that this purchase was not listed in any public records. Though in the east, in the lands plagued by the Ottomans, slavery was still the norm, Italy had several restriction on slavery: not enough to wholly stop the trade of slaves, but sufficient to keep all transactions 'underground.' She was certain that she had come to the right place.

Getting in would be no problem. Her time with the Birds of Passage had instilled within her from the very beginning the tricks of how to enter a place without being seen or heard. At her age and with her knowledge, she could become a master in the art and school other people. Nevertheless, getting into the manor-house was easy. She made her way to the master's room on the second floor. Though she herself was physically and emotionally detached from sexual intercourse, she knew that other people enjoyed it. Though Pyrrha had been a virgin when she was taken from her, who knows what had happened in four years: she might have been this herceg's mistress.

As she climbed up the window-sill and looked into the room, she saw that this was not so.

_What a pity_, her jolly thoughts bewailed. _It would have been so much better if she were here._

**Then we make sure that she _is_** **here!** growled the gloomy side.

_Oh, it will be so much fun!_

Without saying a word or giving out a single sound that betrayed her location, Tira climbed down from the window-sill and slid down the tiled-roof, landing in a bail of hay in a wagon that had been left outside when the workers found no more light to continue work. After pulling herself out, hay and all, she crawled into a ground-level window, then started poking about for the cellar. Every house she had infiltrated in her time had the servant's quarters in the cellar, if it was part of the house proper at all.

At last, she found what she sought. A door at the back of the kitchen opened to a stairwell that went down. Into this she crept, keen-eyed even in the dark, cold basement. No lights were on, for it was night and everyone was asleep. But she had in her hand the shard, the one that had spoken to her all those years ago. It would guide her to Pyrrha, for it was glowing brighter and stronger the closer she was to her pet. It led her straight to one solitary room, where a little girl, still a teenager, lay curled up on the floor, her thumb planted firmly between her lips.

**That's her alright!** growled the gloomy thoughts.

_Aww, she looks so nice and peachy_, cooed the jolly thoughts.

**The b*tch is still sucking her thumb!** hissed the angry thoughts in reply. **_Min Gud!_ Will she ever grow up?**

Sneaking up quietly behind Tira, she crawled behind a large barrel that sat at the far right corner of the room, close to where Pyrrha's head lay. Only the grim determination of her gloomy side kept her from screaming at Pyrrha or striking her where she lay. She had a task to do: get Pyrrha out of the servant's quarters and into the herceg's bed, so she could kill him and make it look as though Pyrrha had committed murder. But how? She thought of setting fire to the manor, but that would probably kill Pyrrha in the process. Over and over she flogged her brains, thinking of some way she could...

Then it occurred to her, a secret fear she herself had had for many years as a child. Those thoughts only came up in her lonely hours, when she wondered about why she was so different than everyone else. Mostly, families told these stories as explanations for strange or disturbing behavior in their children: for Tira, the thought that this might actually be more than fable was a very _real_ fear in her heart.

"Yoo-hoo!" she whispered sinisterly into Pyrrha's ear. "It's the_ troldmor_! I've come to take you away to my cave and eat you up!"

"No, no, please!" Pyrrha moaned in her sleep. "Go away!"

"But I'm not going away, _you_ are!" seethed Tira. "Don't worry, I'll put an ugly baby troll in your place. No one will know you're gone: no one will ever miss you!"

Pyrrha awoke with a scream, and Tira ducked back behind the barrel, shoving her hand into her mouth to keep from exploding with laughter. It worked! Already she could hear doors slamming open as the other servants rose, startled by Pyrrha's screams. She heard the servants enter Pyrrha's room, and Pyrrha's frantic, fearful description of a nightmare in which a troll had kidnapped her and was roasting her over a fire. One of the servants jokingly said that she was so thin, no troll would want to roast her. Pyrrha apologized amidst a sea of new-born tears. The chief of the servants took Pyrrha in hand and went to inform the master, despite the protests from one of the other servants that this was nothing with which to bother him.

One by one, the others left to return to sleep, while Tira waited until they were all gone. Very carefully, she made her way back up to the ground level and then up to the top floor. Once on the roof, she crept up to the edge of the window, listening intently to the herceg's attempts to calm Pyrrha.

"It was only a dream, _kedvesem_."

"It-It sounded so real!" Pyrrha wailed. "I could feel the troll's rotting breath on my ear and my neck..." She buried her face in the herceg's chest, at which he wrapped his arms around her.

"Shh, it's okay," he whispered. "Nothing will harm you tonight, I promise."

"B-But how?" she asked.

"Just close your eyes and think of happy things. Think of our marriage, just two shorts years away."

"I-I can't! I keep seeing a troll's ugly face, it...I..."

"I'm sorry, master," the chief servant said. "She was like this all the way up here. I tried to calm her down, but nothing's working."

"I think I know what might do the trick," the herceg said to his servant. "Goodnight, Pol."

"Goodnight, master." The chief servant bowed, then closed the door as he left.

"Well," the herceg said to Pyrrha. "As we _are_ betrothed, I see no reason why not."

"Uh, what do you mean?"

"Sleep with me tonight," he replied. "I'll keep the trolls away."

"Uh, I don't know if..."

"I give you my word," he assured her. "I will do nothing to offend your honor."

"Slaves have no honor, Jurgis."

"But you're not a slave in my eyes, Pyrrha. You are my love."

And then they kissed. From the window, Tira saw the whole thing, as Pyrrha and Herceg Jurgis crawled under the sheets. She waited for at least an hour, as sleep was daring to draw her heavy eyelids down over her amethyst-colored eyes. But she had to be sure that, when she struck, she would not wake up Pyrrha. It would destroy the whole ruse. She had been so very careful for the past nine years (not counting the four years she was separated from Pyrrha), she could not afford to slip up this time. She crawled over the window sill and crept across the floor of the master bed-chamber, all the while eying Pyrrha and the herceg with utter contempt.

_It's just not fair_, wailed the jolly thoughts. _All Pyrrha's ever done is whine and complain, and she gets treated like a queen!_

**It's like we've always told you,** growled the angry, gloomy thoughts. **You will never have this with someone else.**

_But that's not right, is it?_

**Then take your anger out on that pretty little rich boy!**

With quickness and silence, Tira seized a pillow and held it down tightly over the herceg's face. He thrashed about and called for help, but Tira only pushed harder, her eyes swelling with delight as she savored the kill to come, her heart banging against her rib-cage like a drum. She bit her tongue to keep herself from squealing with delight as she saw the herceg struggle in vain to stay alive, to find some way out of the pillow.

With a sickening groan, the herceg's body finally grew limp and all struggle was gone. A smile split across Tira's face as she knew she had won.

_Yay!_ exclaimed the jolly thoughts. _He's dead! I'm so excited!_

**Just shut up! Plenty of time to throw a fucking ball once we're done here.**

Tira returned the pillow to its place, then reached into her boot and pulled out a small knife. It was only appropriate, really, that she would use _this_ knife to rob Pyrrha Alexandra once again of something dear to her. And, to make it all the better, this time Pyrrha would be blamed for it.

* * *

**(AN: No wonder this story is rated M. I thought that describing Tira suffocating Jurgis Kovacs was enough, you didn't need me to tell you what happened after. It will be referenced in the next chapter.)**

**(In this chapter, we see how Pyrrha got her first outfit from _SCV_. Also, I was being nice to you, _ThalieXVII_, when I had Kovacs tell Pyrrha that he would wait two years until he married her. In the 17th century, women were definitely married off at sixteen [or younger], but I already had some iffy material of that nature in the first few chapters and I promised that I wouldn't have anything else except violence and blood-shed. So here's to me keeping my word. As for Pyrrha's nightmare, it was based on the folklore about Changelings, children abducted by trolls who either eat or raise them, and usually leave either a piece of dead wood or a baby troll that looks human in its place. Rather disturbing, if you think about it. I use 'troll' rather than 'fairy' because in Nordic culture, from whence [in this story, at least] comes Tira, 'troll' is often used as a word for any kind of magical creature. Tira also wonders if she herself was abducted by trolls, since she has no memory of her parents and is quite different among other people [not just her purple eyes].)**


	11. A Mother's Love

**(AN: New chapter, now in the past. I think I'll have this and at least one more chapter in the past [maybe two if I can split them up], and then continue the present story through the events of _SCV_. Oh well, at least we passed ten and this isn't just a short-story. My personal rule for my works on here states that my stories must be ten chapters or more to not be a 'short story.' I was worried about this story not having enough content, since Tira isn't in as many games as, say Siegfried or Sophitia. Looks like I'm doing fine so far.)  
**

**(Also, I think I made a mistake in all of the past chapters where I may have mentioned 'jolly and gloomy' voices. That only becomes clear _after_ the events of "Broken", so disregard all pre-1600 references to 'jolly and gloomy' voices.)  
**

* * *

**A Mother's Love**

_1591 AD_

**Wake up!** the voices screamed at Tira.

_I-I can't!_ Another voice replied. This was new. There had always ever been only one voice within Tira's head: the angry one. Now, it seemed, there was another voice. But she couldn't remember how it got there, she couldn't remember anything, except...

Pain. Unbearable pain, pain beyond belief. Her head was being split in two, like the blade of an ax being driven through her skull. She had blacked out, and couldn't remember anything else afterward.

**You're stronger than this!** growled the voices. **Now get up!**

Her eyes, swimming in the starry blackness of her subconscious, slowly opened up. It was dark, but there was no lack of light, though the moon and stars were hidden beneath a wrack of clouds. As she attempted to stand upon unsteady feet, she found her surroundings had drastically changed. Where once there was a beautiful, aquatic cathedral, now there lay burning ruins, broken and blackened. It was as though Hell itself had vomited its contents upon the Lost Cathedral and all it touched had melted.

"What happened?" she asked.

_It looks so pretty!_ the new voice exclaimed.

**We both felt it,** growled the old voices. **But there was something more to this than just a natural earthquake. ****Couldn't you feel it? It felt like the world was collapsing around those two.**

_Two?_ the new voices asked, sounding inquisitively merry.

**The swords, you idiot! Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. They've reached the apex of their power. It was so great that it broke forth upon this place, like a bursting dam.**

Tira tried to pay attention, but all the destruction about her, and the ringing in her head from all the voices talking at once, was giving her a head-ache. So great was her disorientation that she did not hear the clank of metal from the approach behind her.

"Servant!" a voice growled. It was beyond inhuman, as though the Void had grown life of its own and a voice was given it so that it may speak.

This snapped Tira's thoughts away from her current predicament. Turning about, she saw what remained of the Azure Knight. He looked on the verge of death, his body broken in half at the stomach, kept from falling apart by the malignant energy of Soul Edge. The broken and bloodied gash had grown teeth, as though it were the gaping mouth of the Void as well. She quivered as she knelt before this fearsome sight.

"My lord!" she cried. "You are alive! But, but how...?"

"The host and I were evenly matched," the Azure Knight replied. "It will not happen a second time. You, on the other hand, have failed me."

"Me? B-But how? I came to your side!"

"Your presence here was unneeded, and now it has made you a liability. Prove to me that you are not completely worthless. Find the golem Astaroth and return him to my service."

"And what will you do, my lord?"

"I will summon the shattered pieces of Soul Edge unto me again." the Azure Knight announced. "When next the host faces us, the Blade shall be complete!"

The Azure Knight held his sword aloft, and Tira could feel a rush of air. Suddenly her eyes exploded in horror and she let out cries of alarm. Upon the winds there appeared the black birds, her Watchers. They were being called to the Sword, and once they were caught within the vortex of power, they exploded in a mess of black feathers and blood.

"No!" she screamed. "Not the Watchers! Please, don't!"

But the Azure Knight was not listening. They were expendable now, all of them. The being that inhabited the blue armor was not a puppet, but the malignant manifestation of the will of the Evil Sword: the Inferno on earth. Suddenly, the beast let down the Sword. All the bodies of Tira's beloved Watchers lay dead and bloody around him, and already the Sword seemed to be more powerful. Long and sleek, it burned with the unquenchable fire that hungered for all life on earth. The Azure Knight turned about, casting his fiery red eyes onto the servant.

"There are yet three pieces of the Sword," it said. "The pirate, the woman, the child...their souls will be mine. Go east now, servant. Make certain the pirate finds his way to Ostrheinsburg. His is a powerful soul that has long evaded our hunger."

Tira bowed, then left the blazing Inferno to make her way down the mountain. In the morning, she would go in search for the pirate and the golem. Though she cared not for either of them, she had her duties to fulfill. Once she was done, she would return to Ostrheinsburg. She had almost forgotten about the woman and the child.

Suddenly, she looked down at herself and noticed that she had another problem.

* * *

When Tira finally returned from her venture into India, she was feeling tired and somewhat sick. The foreign 'spirits' of that place had entered her body, making her feel unwell. She also discovered that her mood swings grew increasingly worse, with even the slightest provocation setting her into either an angry, sullen gloom, or homicidal joy. It made things more interesting, but it got in the way of battle. Her jovial side was more playful and energetic, while the sullen side was slower but deadlier: that side didn't play with her enemies as much as the jolly side.

Upon arriving at Ostrheinsburg, she found the Azure Knight there, as well as a large creature that looked as though its flesh were made out of hardened clay. This must be the golem Astaroth. He spoke very little, avoided the presence of others and seemed to enjoy the idea of killing and torture as much as she did. If this thing were any human, or at least more open to companionship, she would find spending time with him enjoyable.

The fourth denizen of Ostrheinsburg was a creepy old man, practically naked save for old rags wrapped around his withering, gray body and a very large codpiece. Instead of hands, he wore large katars that gave him the appearance of having claws instead of hands. His eyes were covered and his mouth was bound by an uncomfortable-looking gag-rope so he never spoke, only communicating in grunts and moans. It disturbed Tira out immensely to be around it, and she spent most of her time alone, or at least roaming the castle on her own.

Baby Pyrrha was a mess when she found her again, still locked in the cellar where she had left her. She scolded her for being so filthy and incapable of keeping herself clean, then dragged her out of the cellar. In one of the castle-halls, she found an empty barrel that looked as though it had been used for washing. Tira, personally, never washed herself, fearing that she might loose her skin in the process. Nevertheless, Pyrrha was so horribly dirty, covered in her own filth, that even Tira could not long bear the smell of her. After carrying a bucket or two of water from the river, she proceeded to pour the water over Pyrrha's end, ordering her to clean herself up and don't come back until you're done.

Free once more from that horrible little girl, she made her way to the Throne Room. Assembled there, on one of the rare occasions that Astaroth could be forced into coming up from the dungeons, was the Azure Knight with his servants. Tira crept in from behind, joining them as though she had been there all along. Already her heart was beating nervously beneath her little chest. The Azure Knight had called her a worthless liability. Did that mean she would end up dead, like all the rest, her soul feeding the power of Soul Edge?

_But I don't wanna die!_ sobbed the jolly voice.

**You won't die,** snapped the gloomy voice. **If you do exactly as I say! We've survived without him before, we can do it again.**

_No, not this time!_ her jolly thoughts argued. _He's the only one who understands us! He has the path to power, to destruction! Without him...what becomes of us?_

Her thoughts were interrupted by the great, oaken doors being thrust open. Down the grand corridor there appeared the outline of a woman, wearing pure white and wielding a sword and shield. Tira knew exactly who this woman was, though it had been many months since she had last crossed blades with her: the Amazon had called her Sophitia Alexandra. With a devious smile creeping onto her face, Tira knew exactly why she was here.

**Don't say a word!** growled the angry, gloomy thoughts sullenly. **Just follow my lead and everything will be alright.**

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

Tira was back lolling about the castle with nothing much to do. The meeting had been boring. Instead of coming to fight or demand her daughter back, Sophitia had pledged herself to the service of the Azure Knight. She would defend Soul Edge and then her own soul would be devoured to feed that which she had protected: her life was meaningless to them. It didn't matter that her master accepted her, she didn't feel jealousy like an emotionally-driven child who can think no farther than the cries of her body. She was just another servant, expendable in the end.

While Tira was wandering about, bored to tears, she saw a tiny white cat padding its way along the stones of the castle wall.

"Hello there!" she exclaimed. "Where did you come from?"

Before the poor animal could react, she closed her cold steel gloves about it, then picked it up to look at it. It was too young to determine sex, but, all things considered, it was rather cute.

"Oh, poor little kitty!" she pouted. "Mommy's gonna miss you if you're not home soon!" With a laugh, she knelt down and drew her knife from out of her boot. Killing this kitten meant nothing to her, just a way of easing the boredom of waiting before battle. Once the kitten saw the blade, it gave a struggle for its life, leaping successfully out of Tira's clutches and bounding away for it's life.

"Oh, now where did you go?" she groaned. With a smile on her face and her knife blade upward in hand, she began to prowl the castle, calling out: "Here, kitty kitty!" She wandered about, looking for that annoying little kitten, when all of a sudden a thought came to her mind.

_We have a poor little kitten of our own here!_ the jolly thoughts commented.

**She's just a means to an end,** growled the angry voices.

_But can't we have a little fun with her, since her Mommy's here too?_

**Oh, I guess it wouldn't be such a bad idea. It would certainly feel good to torture her with the knowledge that her child will never remember her.**

She laughed hysterically at the thought, then swiveled her head as her gloomy mood took control. She marched down the halls of the castle until she heard the sound of a bird. Suddenly her jovial mood took control and she was looking curiously about hither and yon, trying to find the sound of the bird. At last she saw, nestled in one of the hallways, a fledgling raven with a broken wing.

"Aww, you're too young to be broken already," she lamented to the bird, who tweeted mournfully back to her. She rose her hand to strangle the bird to put it out of its misery, but then another thought came into her mind.

"Come along, Munin," she said to the baby bird, scooping it up in her hands. "You'll be the first of my new Watchers."

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

Tira returned the bird to her room - a tiny servant's quarters nearest the Throne Room, then made her way to find the one she had set out to find in the first place. While she was walking, she took a notice of her garments. They had been horribly torn and burned during the incident at the cathedral, and she had been forced to repair them at the first town she found. Most of the ruined or burned pieces were torn off, which left very little still remaining of the red uniform she had 'modified.' To that end, she stole several gold rings, which she used to keep her sleeves and trousers from falling off. In addition, a few haphazard straps of rough leather served to keep her bosom steady in battle. She was quite proud of what she had done.

**Focus, you idiot! Do what you came to do then be done with it!**

_Okay okay, you killjoy!_

Still infatuated with her jovial mood, she sauntered over to what had once been the quarters of the lady of the castle, now long since deserted. Here was where the Greek woman had placed herself. With a firm knock at the door, punctuated by a jovial "Knock knock!", she announced herself to Sophitia.

The woman turned about, and immediately, Tira hated her. She hated her because she was weak. She was trusting, loving, caring: she would give of herself in a heart-beat, selflessly and without thought of anything in return. She noted, from the look of sorrow in her green eyes, that she was hesitant, especially to take life. That was weakness, cowardice, sheer stupidity. Tira trusted no one, sometimes she feared even the voices within her head. Love was weakness to her and she cared for nothing but the birds, for they were truly free. She thought nothing of taking from anyone without ever thinking of giving back. She never hesitated when it came to killing; in fact, she loved it.

"What do you want?" Sophitia asked, after a few, meaningless words passed between them.

"To show you something!" Tira answered. "You've come a long way to find your little girl, don't want you to be disappointed: nope nope!"

_This is it, the best torture ever!_ her jovial thoughts oozed as she went to find Pyrrha. _She's the idiot for having children, for leaving her alone and defenseless! She_ needs_ to see this!_

* * *

**(AN: Had originally planned on making this chapter longer, but thought of cutting it here, especially since I need to make this story a little longer. Yes, we mentioned how her _SCIV_ outfit came to be.)**

**(I guess the title speaks for that last moment, where we get to see Tira analyze Sophitia [rather than the author analyzing Tira]. As far as the canon goes, yes, she was involved with getting Maxi to Ostrheinsburg, but I cut that out. I'm wrapping up the past-portions of Tira's story and bringing in another character with very little time in the story seemed overly tedious, so he gets honorable mention as 'the pirate.' Also, it is said in _SCV_ that she has a 'new' flock of Watchers. One could say that they just all died of old age, but, as Nightmare's _SCIV_ ending sees him devour Tira's soul and, it is strongly hinted, that _SCIV_ Nightmare is in fact Inferno inhabiting the armor of the Azure Knight, that seemed a little more likely, since he's calling all the pieces of Soul Edge to him and doesn't need them anymore.)  
**


	12. The End of the World

**(AN: First week back in college and already my world feels like it's coming down about my ears. At least I still have this to work on [and other works as well, lol].)  
**

**(As you undoubtedly saw in the last chapter, I amended some of the dialogue from _Sophitia_. I don't need to repeat all of that, just the important bits: in this case, those which pertain to Tira. It's all in the same canon, of course, as I've said before, only this is from _Tira_'s perspective, so she doesn't really pay much attention to Sophitia's emotions or her sorrows. Those aren't her concern. Speaking of which, there will be a new scene, part of that one which, so far, has permeated _all_ of my _Soul Calibur_ fics. It will be totally worth it, so don't go away!)  
**

* * *

**The End of the World**

_1591 AD_

In the weeks that followed, life at Ostrheinsburg became hideously lonesome for Tira. The bird she was nursing, Munin, was not yet well enough to fly, and she almost felt like killing it, if only to end its ongoing misery. Pyrrha was a handful, to say the least, but she had served her purpose. Tira would never forget the look on Sophitia's face when she saw her daughter, or the horror when she knew that her own child didn't even know the face of her own mother. It was such fun, and even the sorrowful mother's threats didn't dampen her spirits.

But the boredom persisted, with nothing much happening between watching after little Pyrrha. The white kitten she had found was long since dead, gutted by her own knife, and provided very little enjoyment: just a trivial death of a life that meant absolutely nothing. Every once in a while, someone would find their way to Ostrheinsburg, but even those times were now becoming few and far between. People were becoming smarter as the rumors of the evil of that place became more and more widespread.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

It happened as the spring was dying down in the year of 1591. Her master, the Azure Knight, told her to make sure the Alexandros woman knew about Soul Calibur, that it should be destroyed. So Tira wove her tale, knowing the weak mother would do anything to protect her little brat of a child. It was the only mildly interesting thing that happened in a month of doldrums. But one evening, Tira was up on the walls, with Eiserne Drossel hanging on her shoulder and Munin cradled in her arms. She had a task to do.

"I'm sorry, little one," she said glumly. "But you're just no good. I've tried everything with you, but you just won't fly!" She walked up to the edge of the castle wall and looked down at the rushing river below. Just a quick drop, and then it would be over: the bird's wings would get wet, it would flounder, sink and die and then it would end. She raised her arms out over the edge of the wall, and gave one last look to her bird.

"I really wish you could fly," she pouted. "But I guess..." Her words halted just as they were leaving her mouth. She did not even know that her hands had opened and she had dropped the bird. Something much worse was happening just on the horizon.

Without another thought, she ran down the steps of the castle walls and made for the keep as fast as her legs could carry her. Seated there was the Azure Knight, the others away at their stations.

"My lord!" she cried out, kneeling before him. "I bring terrible news! An army...coming this way. They're so close, I could see the fire from their torches on the horizon."

The Azure Knight rose from his throne, though Tira, looking up for a moment, noticed that he was staggering slightly.

"My lord, are you okay? Do you need...?"

"I need nothing from you!" growled the Nightmare.

For a brief yet poignant moment, there was silence in the halls of Ostrheinsburg. Tira's eyes went from the form of her master, leaning heavily on the double-handed Cursed Sword in his hand, to the Sword itself. It seemed to be shaking every so slightly, as though it were in fear of destruction. Was it Soul Calibur? Had some other, greater power suddenly risen to destroy the Sword, bringing this army to their doorstep?

Suddenly, the earth began to shake. The walls of Ostrheinsburg buckled and seemed about to break, yet held fast. Without waiting for a dismissal from her lord, Tira left the keep and ran back out to the walls. The sight she saw made her heart race, as though what she had always wished was now coming to pass.

Far beyond the land corrupted by the cursed city of Ostrheinsburg, the earth was aflame. Great convulsions shook the earth, but the conflagration seemed to be the heart of them all. With a smile and a laugh, she ran to find the Greek woman and have her see the sights of destruction. She did not enjoy them at all, seemingly only concerned with her little brat of a child.

"I know just what will make you happy!" Tira exclaimed as her jolly mood took control. She jogged down the stairs, just as she heard her master giving orders.

"Kill any who try to scale that Tower!" he said. "Voldo, your master demands the life of the one you've faced before. Kill him and my soul will be freed!"

Tira didn't understand a word of this. There was no tower, and why was he talking to Voldo differently than the golem? Without much more consideration, she found Pyrrha and led her up to the walls of the castle. As they were on the way, she heard the Azure Knight speaking again.

"The wielder of Soul Calibur will be going that way, expecting me to go as well," he said. "I will find him, destroy him, return the blade and the world shall be devoured in the flames of the abyss!"

_Oh! Such lovely thoughts of destruction! This is it, our final task!_

**Don't get too excited, things might go wrong.**

_Never! No one can stop us now!_

She ran to the top of the stairs, with baby Pyrrha running after her. There was Sophitia, gazing out at the burning landscape beyond. Casting her own eyes thither, she saw that thing of which her master had spoken. Higher than the clouds, loftier than the heavens, there rose a tower out of the burning earth.

"You ready?" Tira asked Sophitia.

* * *

It was farther to the Tower that had risen on the horizon than Tira had originally believed. Though the golem was tireless and the strange old man rode on his back like a child on the back of its father, those who were more human needed other means of travel. The Azure Knight saddled himself upon a steel-clad charger and was the first to set off. After tying Pyrrha's hands together and then tying another rope to her waist and then that around her body, she hopped on a smaller horse and set off after her lord. Riding was not one of Tira's favorite ways to travel, but speed was of the essence. She was too busy being bounced about in the saddle, which hurt her hind-quarters like no one's business, she didn't notice someone else following on behind, who had stolen a horse and joined the sortie.

Sophitia.

It was a battle for the ages. Warriors from all across the world gathered at this place, drawn to the Tower's mighty and awful presence. There were warriors bearing the banner of the Wolf, many from the east, including a band of warriors bearing a familiar broken cross on their _sashimono_ banners. For a moment, she wondered if the one she had attacked had survived and told the rest of them about what had happened.

_No! That couldn't be, he bled to death!_

Without another thought, she made her way to the gate of the Tower, where the golem and the old man were standing guard. She took her place with Pyrrha hiding behind her as the sounds of warfare echoed in the valley below. The horse approached suddenly, reeling up on its hind legs before the golem.

"Maggot!" growled the golem.

"Stand down, monster!" Sophitia said. "I've come to join you."

"You were given no such orders!" it returned.

"I fight for something beyond your comprehension, beast," she retorted angrily as she dismounted and took her place at Tira's side.

"Are you ready?" Sophitia asked Tira.

She heaved the ring-blade off her shoulder, then set her feet, ready for whoever would be foolish enough to face them. Not but a few moments had passed since they arrived when she saw four striding towards the entrance of the Tower. Her hands flexed on the cold steel of Eiserne Drossel, eager for blood to be shed. Slowly the figures started to become clearer: one was a woman clad in armor like a man, another looked like one of the people of the East, and the third looked so alike Sophitia that Tira wondered if they were related or not. It was the one in the center, however, that made her nervous.

It was that German idiot, the one who had once possessed Soul Edge.

What happened next was sheer chaos. The German attacked the golem, while the Eastern woman disappeared. Where had Voldo gone off to? The other women seemed to be at a stand-still, waiting for a moment to attack. But then, as though it had been planned all along, the pirate appeared, attacking the golem along with a white giant. Tira turned to attack the popinjay before he could enter the castle, but a slender blade halted her pass.

"That evil sword," a sinister-sounding voice said in broken German. "Could it be the master?"

Tira turned about and saw something that both shocked and disgusted her. It was a warrior, clad in the garb of the East, his face hidden behind a mask that was crowned with the helmet of some kind of cuttlefish. There was something wrong with his right arm, the one that held the sword in her way. On his back was a banner with the broken cross inlaid into a tapestry of some beautiful landscape.

"You're absolutely irritating!" she seethed at the strange, masked warrior. "Disappear already!"

"I shall not leave," the sinister voice said from within the mask, taking the stance of battle. "Until the cries of my clan-members for vengeance have been satiated."

"Oh, so it's you, then?" she replied, still heavily encumbered by her moody side.

"When thou comest unto thy next life," the voice said. "Say who it was who took from thee thy hateful life: _Yoshimitsu!_"

The warrior attacked with a wide, horizontal sweep of his slender blade. She ducked the blow, then aimed a kick at his left knee, hoping to break it and take him out of commission before going into an easy kill. But the warrior was quick, and had lifted up his left knee, balancing only on his right leg. But she was more than this, and swept the Eiserne in a wide arc, aiming to hack off the right leg if she couldn't break the left. But the warrior moved his leg as well, both legs now off the ground. For a moment, she wondered where he was, then heard a voice above her head.

"_Kore ka?!_" the warrior said in his native language. Looking up, Tira saw that the warrior was hovering above her head, his right arm, the one holding his sword, spinning like a mad windmill. He could fly! Damn everything she had known, somehow this strange, Eastern freak could fly.

"_Mikuuken__!_" the warrior cried with a loud voice. Without another thought, Tira knew that she had to move: she rolled to the side as the warrior came down, sword first, in a blaze that would have cut her in twain.

"Running away?" he replied, looking about for Tira. "_Shikizokuzekuu!_"

Tira swung her blade at him, eager to put this creature to an end. But the warrior held up his right arm, which caught the blow. Immediately, Tira knew something was different about this strange thing. her blow would have hacked off his arm in one graceful sweep, yet the dull thud that sounded when her blade hit his arm sounded like wood.

Suddenly, they were both pushed aside by a strong warrior with a slender blade like the strange warrior's. Without even halting, the newcomer ran to the now defenseless entrance of the Tower. Tira could not engage him, for she was already in combat with this strange person, whom she assumed was called Yoshimitsu. Suddenly, she felt a hand seize her face. She had been careless in watching after the newcomer, and Yoshimitsu had gotten his hand on her face. When he let go, she felt dizzy and disoriented.

"_Hishigistu_..." he began drawing back his blade dramatically. "_Hissastu!_"

With a sudden thrust, the blade was brought towards her. But Tira had recovered and rolled aside, narrowly missing being impaled on his blade like a suckling pig at a banquet.

**Idiot!** growled the gloomy side. **Stop playing around with him!**

"Disappear!" she growled, swinging her blade across, then pivoting her wrist and bringing it down. The blow was parried, but the strange warrior gave ground. She swung again, but this time, Eiserne was knocked aside and another stab caught Tira off-guard. She was quite literally fighting for her life, it seemed: this warrior was quite the challenge, even for her.

Suddenly, a deafening roar shook the earth, blaring in Tira's ears like the rush of a storm. Far and away in the valley, something was happening. Tira didn't care much, for her opponent required all of her attention: one moment missed and she would find herself dead.

But where Yoshimitsu should have been, instead there was a cloud of thick smoke. Far away, she saw the warrior scrambling away down the valley.

**Coward!** she seethed inside.

_But look! Look where he's run off to!_

In the midst of the valley there was a great light, like the warmth of a great forest fire burning at the center of the universe. Held aloft from the midst of that conflagration was a sword, gleaming like a red hot torch. Her heart raced: she knew what that fire was, and she knew that it meant the time had come. No more fears, no more doubts, it would all shortly come to pass.

Suddenly, she felt something tugging at her short-cut trousers. She lunged back, Eiserne ready to bathe in blood, and suddenly came to a halt. All she saw standing there, with a meek, innocent look on her face, was Pyrrha.

"Come on, you!" she snarled, dragging Pyrrha after her by her blond hair. "You've outlived your usefulness."

* * *

This was the final moment. All these warriors gathered at the base of the Tower, all their armies, all these powerful souls. It mattered not who summoned the Tower or why, because her lord, the Azure Knight, would make use of it just the same. They were here, and now he would devour them. The greatest dark age this world had ever known was about to begin, one ruled by the lust of Soul Edge: a world of anarchy, chaos and destruction, where the strong survived, love, mercy and other weak things were dead and raped, and the only justice was death.

_I can't wait!_ the jolly thought exulted. _It will finally be as it should be!_

She watched with wrapped attention as she saw warriors cut down by the millions, insignificant lives snuffed out to feed Soul Edge's power. Tens, hundreds, thousands, it made her feel so alive to hear the cries of the dead and dying. She only wished that she could be there, among them, cutting a swath of destruction herself. But that would come later, she knew.

Suddenly, a bright light, like the shine of the moon and stars upon the surface of a lake at midnight, appeared to face the creature. It was the Spirit Sword, the one against which she had been warned and against which she had warned the Greek woman. Only this time, it was not as she had remembered it in the depths of the Lost Cathedral; this time, it was much stronger, like the essence of all that she hated and feared made manifest in a power that, she knew, was too great for her to face on her own.

_But he will do it,_ her thoughts clamored. _My lord is powerful, stronger than the Spirit Sword. If there's anyone on this earth powerful enough to destroy it, it will be him!_

The force broke against the burning shadow with the fury of the greatest tidal wave of the sea. They met, and for a moment, it seemed that they were evenly-matched. The light was burning brightly, but the shadow was not daunted by its power, unwavering and undimmed. All fled, broken or dying from the clash of the two great powers, but they remained steadfast, unbending against the fury of the other.

The darkness held forth its fiery brand, and suddenly, the very air about them began to quiver and shake, as though reality itself were being ripped apart at the seams. Brilliant lights appeared in the sky, all of them surrounding a great hole, a blank spot in existence, a passageway into the void. It seemed to rest just above the midst of the battlefield of the light and the darkness, ready to devour the loser.

But fate played its hand and things took a turn for the worse. The light seemed to be growing brighter, until its radiance was like that of a thousand suns all burning upon the earth at one moment. The darkness was quivering, it's power waning against the brilliance.

"No!" she cried. "No, not now! Not when we're so close!"

She seemed so powerless, so incapable of helping her lord. She knew she could not approach the light, and yet she could not simply stand there as her lord was in danger. If he fell...

_No, it won't happen! It just _won't!

The world was breaking, collapsing on that one point where the battle was the greatest. But it wasn't stopping, it wasn't relenting. It was like the Lost Cathedral again, only worse. Their powers were matched then, and it had caused such great destruction. But they were so close now, it just couldn't end like this, it _couldn't!_

A soft, quiet noise, like distant cannon-fire, sounded from the midst of that valley. The darkness quivered and, at last, collapsed in on itself, releasing itself as a fog of red smoke, faint and thin. Only the light remained. The conflict was over.

"**_NO!_**" Tira screamed, collapsing to her knees.

She cried, she wailed, she screamed, she banged her fists against her forehead: she had failed, _they_ had failed. The world of darkness, in which she would be queen, would never come to pass. The Azure Knight, the only one who had ever truly understood her homicidal tendencies, who understood the darkness within her heart, was gone forever, destroyed by the light.

_We failed!_ the jolly thoughts bemoaned.

**This can't be!** growled the gloomy thoughts morosely.

It was no good anymore, her cries would not bring him back. He was gone, destroyed. She believed in neither Heaven nor Hell, so there would be nothing beyond death: just a fading away. His life was gone, his body would decay and even the memory would fade forever.

_What, then, is left for us?_ She thought.

There was nothing left in the future for Tira, nothing at all. She would go on, living as a vagabond, a murder-loving outcast. She would live out what else was left of her short, meaningless existence, killing for what little satisfaction it would provide. The only one in the universe who truly understood her was now dead and gone, and soon, she would go thither as well. But not into any paradise of darkness, not to a blissfull or punishing afterlife; there was, for her, not even the consolation that she would be reunited with her lord in death. They would both be separated forever...

_We are lost and so alone!_ her thoughts cried out within her mind, even as she herself wept openly.

* * *

**(AN: Not more I could go with this chapter that wouldn't stretch it out to an impossibly-long...length. But yes, those were the events of _SCIV_. Like I said in _Siegfried_, _SCIV_'s story mode is very short, and that was somewhat reflected in this story, as in _Siegfried_.)**

**(Lot of stuff was explained in this chapter, especially why it was the sight of the final showdown. As most, if not all, of the heroes would be converging on this spot, it was the perfect place for the Azure Knight to harvest souls. That was a second cameo from Mitsurugi, as well as one by Yoshimitsu [and now I have something to shoot for in _Yoshimitsu: Angel of Vengeance_]. Believe it or not, the Manji-tou emblem is indeed the Broken Cross. In the East, it represents eternity, the number 10,000 and pretty much everything in the universe. In the West, it was a symbol of sun-worship until a certain Austrian idiot turned it into a symbol of hatred.)**

**(Any other questions can be filled out in the reviews and answered when I get to work on the next chapter, or immediately in a PM if you would so desire.)**


	13. The New Plan

**(AN: Lovely chapter, this one. Starts out with sadness and just gets deeper and deeper. There is something in this chapter which some people might find disturbing, so please, pardon my depiction of such.)**

**(I was listening to "Gollum's Song" from the soundtrack of _Lord of the Rings_ while writing the beginning of this chapter, and a bit at the end of the last chapter. It fits so well with Tira's character.)**

* * *

**The New Plan**

_1591 AD_

Weeping. Tira was in great mourning, but she was not the only thing in this world that wept. Pyrrha had fallen over and was now lying on her back, shaking and crying painfully. It meant nothing to the freak in red, for her lord was gone, destroyed and life had no more meaning. She wished she could die, she wanted to end it now, since it all seemed so pointless. So great was her sorrow, she didn't hear another voice lifted up in sorrow. The mother had found her child broken beyond repair, swaying on the edge of death and life.

To her, the world had come to an end. Life meant nothing without the one thing that made it worth living. Oh, how she would have spilled all of her blood at any given moment to prevent this day from ever coming to pass.

For one brief moment, Tira and Sophitia Alexandros felt the same kind of sorrow for the very same reasons.

Tira didn't even take pleasure in the cries of pain, the sickly-sweet sound of flesh being torn, the gurgle of a woman choking on her own blood. The world around her might as well go into that hole in the sky for all that she cared. The dying down of the cries, replaced only by the choking rattle of one on the verge of death, did not move her, for it meant nothing, all of it. Her life might as well be lies for all that it meant.

"Pyrrha..." a voice moaned, clinging hopelessly onto what little life there was left within it.

With the kind of cold apathy one might give to a piece of filth before it is discarded, Tira's eyes creaked open, weary from their torrent of tears, and looked upon what had spoken. Lying but a few feet away from her was Pyrrha, on her back, as if dead. Crawling towards her was her mother, her face broken and sorrowful beyond words, her body cut open down the center. Blood was flowing from her eviscerated bowels like water: there was more blood here than Tira had ever seen. She saw the sorrowful face of the weak woman look up at her, tears in her emerald eyes.

"Look after her." she sighed, a pool of blood dripping out of her mouth as she spoke. With one last effort, she pushed herself forward, lost her strength, and fell forward, her right hand touching the form of her daughter.

For a moment, Tira scanned the sight with mild indifference. She saw a dagger with a curved blade, the one she herself kept tucked into her boot for emergencies, lying in the steadily-growing pool of blood. A hand reached down and found that her own knife was not in her boot. This woman had crawled up on her while she was weeping and stole her knife, but to what end? Had she considered killing her? She knew what would happen, but that had already happened.

It was then that Tira realized she had never witnessed a suicide before. Her victims had always begged for their lives, clutching onto them with more vigor than they had ever possessed. She herself was afraid of dying, for it would mean an end to her life, a future of no hope, no rest, simply death. What would drive someone to take their own life?

**We destroyed her,** the gloomy thoughts sighed. **But to what avail?**

_Shut up, just shut up, you!_ pouted the jolly thoughts with injured sorrow.

**Do you now see what it brought you? Nothing! You can't simply rely on something so fragile, you will always be disappointed!**

_Go away, you! I hate you! You've never been anything but a g****** killjoy!_

**Oh, have I, now? We've kept you alive this long, haven't we? We took into ourselves all of your hurts - Solnhofen, Fugelmor, the Azure Knight - all of them! We have taken those hurts into ourselves and become strong! We crawled our way back from beyond the grave with our own power! We don't need the Azure Knight! Nothing will stop us now!**

_But what's left in this dready, gray world?_

The arguing continued for many long minutes. All the while, Tira was unaware of her surroundings, or that the young woman whom she had taken for some relative of Sophitia's, was cradling the corpse of the Greek warrior woman in her arms. Little Pyrrha had been left quite abandoned, and she wished to be known: she cried and screamed, not knowing that the mother whose face she did not know had given her life for her.

_What's this?_ the jolly thoughts asked, voice still shaken with tears. _But...but she should be dead!_

**Obviously she isn't!**

_But how?_

This baffled Tira greatly. During her dark rituals in Ostrheinsburg, she had forced the piece of Soul Edge into Pyrrha's body, impaling it into her heart. Now only its malevolent infestation could keep her alive: should the Sword be destroyed, the piece inside Pyrrha's body would die and her with it. But the Sword had been destroyed, she should be dead.

_Could it be, could it really be, that the Sword...somehow..._survived?!

**And it seems it has chosen it's next host.**

_But it was supposed to be me! _I_ was the one who offered myself to it! _I_ would do it justice, _I_ would use it for destruction and mayhem and-and..._

**Just shut up already! Look, we don't have time for this. Grab the brat and start running, or don't you see what's going on in the valley below?**

Tira looked this way and that, and then back into the valley where she had been instructed. The crack in the sky, the maw of night, was fast closing about itself, its glistening gateway growing brighter and brighter. The wind was picking up as well, blowing her pony-tails in the direction of the void. She rose to her feet, picking up Pyrrha from where she had been forgotten, and made haste from that place, the child in her arms.

"Come along, dearie!" she said to the little girl. "You've going to stay with me."

_But aren't we obeying her stupid mother's wishes by looking after her?_

**Don't worry, I have a plan. If that stupid woman could only see what would happen when we're through with her daughter, she would have wished that she'd destroyed Soul Edge completely when she had the chance!**

_Oh! It's sounds so exciting!_

And so Tira left the burning plains around the Tower of Remembrance, her life filled with renewed purpose.

* * *

_Why do we have to do this?_ bemoaned her jolly thoughts.

**We need to make sure the other brat will grow up eager to avenge her death.**

_Wait, grow up? It sounds like this will take a while._

**Who knows? It might take many years, but when the time is ready, we will be ready, and then...**

Thoughts of what would happen filled her head as she made the long voyage south. She had been this way before, during the days when she was to the Azure Knight nothing but a loyal and distant servant, a few black scribbles on parchment. She delivered a piece of metal to a blacksmith, then returned home thinking nothing of it. The last time she had been to this particular part of the world, she had abducted a child. Now she would be going this way again, said child in tow.

After many long weeks, she stood on the ruined steps of a great stone temple, somewhere in Greece. It had been converted to a mosque by the Turks, so she remained on the outside, looking down at the village below. In there somewhere was the one she needed to visit, to plant the seeds of vengeance, even so early on. Upon examining the village, she discerned that it was a small place, one where everyone knew everybody since birth. Such places were hard to hide in, she knew from personal experience, and even harder to kill someone without them going missing for long. Though she had stolen Pyrrha away before she could remember much of anything, for certain there were people in this village who would recognize the little child waddling behind Tira in the streets of Athens.

She would have to make this journey alone.

"Listen here," she snarled, turning to baby Pyrrha. "You stay here, don't move, don't talk to anyone. I'll be back when I'm back."

Without another word, she hefted her blade onto her shoulder and began to make her slow, winding trail down the rocky hills of Greece, into the village of Athens.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

Here was the place. Her Greek was not very good, but she had learned just enough to tell her story and to find her way. A cloak she had stolen from a market in Hungary was enough to hide her outlandish appearance: from a glance, she could be anybody. Though she could not read the language much more than she could speak it, most of the people in the village were more or less illiterate, much like the peoples of Europe with whom she was familiar. As such, the stores and shops had signs hanging from the awnings of the structures, each with emblems of the craft that was carried out thereat.

She found the blacksmith's shop, the one on the edge of town. She had visited this place before, when she had dropped a fragment of Soul Edge several months ago. Finding the house, however, would be a different problem, since there would be no signs. But she had more to go on than just signs and old memories. She had newer, more recent, memories of this place, ones from her puppet who had come this way just weeks ago.

The house was simply, ordinary in every form of the word. Nothing to indicate that a warrior woman had lived here, nothing that said they were in mourning. They didn't know, and Tira would not let them remain ignorant for much longer. She approached the house, her throat tightening as her hand went up to the door and knocked five times upon the wood. It was opened by a handsome young man with dark hair and the beginnings of a beard. There was something in the way he looked at her that made Tira hate him almost instantly: here was someone almost exactly like his foolish wife, all too trusting and not wary enough.

"_Geiá sou_," the man greeted. "What brings you to my home?"

"Is this the house of Sophitia Alexandros?"

"You've heard from my wife?" he asked. Oh, how trusting he was, she noted. At his feet, he saw a young boy waddling up to the door, thumb planted firmly between his lips.

"I have bad news, I'm afraid," she replied, trying with all of her might to keep herself from doing something: breaking his neck, spitting in his face, anything for being so stupid, so trusting.

"Patroklos, _pi̱gaínete sto do̱mátió sas._" the father said to the child. "_Tó̱ra!_" The little boy did as he was instructed, leaving only the two of them at the door.

"What has happened? Where are my wife and daughter?"

"I..." It made her sick, genuinely ill to her stomach, to even attempt to sound comforting, yet she must: normal people were comforting, and she had to keep up her act.

"I am terribly sorry," she kept her head bowed. "Your wife is dead."

The man's face fell, as though he himself had lost an irrevocable part of himself. Tira had to scream at herself to keep her head down; she could not risk looking up, seeing the abject horror on his face and crack open into peels of laughter and mocking smiles.

"How?"

"She was murdered," Tira said. "By a _kakóspóro_. She had a strange weapon, it looked like a giant ring. There's no word about your daughter."

The man collapsed against the threshold of his house, leaning his head against the doorpost and attempting to hide his face. But there could be no hiding the tears streaming down his face, just as there could be no hiding the smirk that was creeping across Tira's face, hidden beneath the hood. But she couldn't be here anymore, she just couldn't stand all this falsehood. Without a word, she left the house and ran outside of the village as fast as her legs could carry her. Once outside, she promptly emptied the contents of her stomach right there on the hillside. Though it had all been play-acting, pretending that she cared and keeping her natural self contained for so long made her physically revolted and ill.

Once she felt somewhat better, she made her way up the hill to the ruined temple. Now that _that_ was taken care of, the real work would begin. Once she reached the top of the hill, just below the stairs, her heart began to race. She looked this way and that, but there was no sign. She cursed herself inward and outward for her foolishness.

Pyrrha was missing.

* * *

**(AN: I know this chapter has a lot of one-line paragraphs, and that annoys people. It was all for dramatic effect, I assure you. The rest of the story didn't have that many, and the other rest won't either. Yes, we've only just finished the _SCIV_ portion. There's still a lot more to go.)**

**(The "official" story is that Sophita was killed by one of those corrupted by Soul Edge [malfested in _SCV_ or _kakóspóro_, which literally means "Evil Seed" in Greek in this one. Please pardon me if I butcher your language: it was not my intention], yet the story seems to hint that Sophitia took her own life to save Pyrrha by removing the shard of Soul Edge imbedded in herself. The latter is what shall be canon in my story, but the rumor that Sophitia had been murdered, in this story, is one that Tira starts, in order to have little Patroklos raised feeling unjustly treated, so that he would actively seek revenge.)  
**


	14. Reunion

**(AN: Several questions are about to be answered in this chapter. Also, we won't be visiting the past anymore, so the chapters afterward will be my second attempt at bringing some kind of cohesion to _SCV_'s story.)  
**

* * *

**Reunion**

_1603 AD_

_It wasn't me!_ Pyrrha wept. _I didn't do it, I _didn't!

She was lying in a prison cell, weeping and crying as was her wont. She had awoken to screams and angry cries, and she found that her waking hours weren't much better than her dreams. Her former master, Jurgis Kovacs, was dead. She was the only one in the room, and as if that were not enough, she was found with one hand over his mouth, the bed covered in blood and the knife in her other hand. She had wept and protested that she hadn't killed her master, even admitting, while under interrogation by the constable, that he had offered to marry her after she was freed. It mattered not, for none of the servants were on her side: the master was dead and they needed a scapegoat with which to distract the authorities while they looted his manor house.

"Why does this keep happening to me?" she whined for the thousandth time.

It was her past all over again. Jurgis had promised those days were gone, and yet they had returned from out of the depths of her past to haunt and torment her again. For as long as she could remember, she was a wanderer. Any town she entered, anyone who had tried to end up close to her: it all ended the same, with them dead at her feet and her to blame.

"It wasn't me! It _wasn't_ me!" she screamed into the night, beating her hands against her forehead.

Her earliest memory had been waking up inside a burning building. Everywhere the sounds of death, fire and those burning to death filled her ears, breaking her fragile will so early on with the horrors of the conflagration. Her nose was stung with the heated air and the foul smell of burning flesh. Her eyes saw flesh boiling and burning off the bodies of these poor women, helpless against the fire. They were afraid of her, they never called out for help when she was near, they only screamed all the more.

"Yoo-hoo!" a voice called out from the top of the stairwell that led into the jail.

Pyrrha looked up from her stupor, fearing what that voice promised. While she was crying, shaking with fear in the midst of what looked like Hell incarnate, a shadowy figure strode through the flames, a wicked smile upon her face and menacing laughter on her lips. Pyrrha was afraid of her, she wanted to crawl away, screaming like one of the burning young women: yet this figure did not scream, she did not cry, she did not look upon Pyrrha with fear and loathing. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying yourself.

Like a phantom out of a nightmare from the nascent years of memory, the figure strode down the steps of the dungeon. She wore a green doublet with teal sleeves that had been so horribly torn, frayed and intentionally cut that it showed more of her body than it covered. She wore leggings of the same teal color as the sleeves of her doublet, which ended in pointed shoes on her feet. Her hands were gloved and on her shoulder was a weapon fashioned like a giant ring.

"Hello there, Pyrrha," Tira said. "Looking rather down, aren't you?"

"I didn't do it, I swear!" Pyrrha wept.

"I believe you," the woman said as she pressed her body up against the bars of the dungeon, leering through with her large, purple eyes.

"It wasn't me! It wasn't me!"

"Of course it wasn't," Tira pouted playfully. "Those servants of your master were evil people. They didn't understand you, they used you to their advantage. I'll bet you all the gold in the Spanish Main that they're looting your master's manor as we speak."

"B-But that's not fair!"

"Of course it isn't!" Tira replied. "And what do we do to those people?"

"B-But I don't want to hurt anyone!" whined Pyrrha.

"Here, I'll make you a deal," Tira said. "I'll set you free if you go to your dead master's manor house. If the servants take you back, you'll never see me again. Do we have a deal?"

She reached her gloved hand through the bars, extended in an offering of liberty. Pyrrha rose from the straw of the dungeon on shaking knees. She wanted to be free, to be out of this prison cell, but she feared what she might find if she went back to the manor house. Also, she was a little fearful of that smile on Tira's face as she leered down at her from the other side of the bars. She was the only one who took care of her, as far as she could recall, but she still treated her like a pet, constantly berating and taunting and mocking. Her purple eyes, which when hidden behind their heavy lids looked like the stomachs of two women with child, did not blink or move as they stared at her: that also made her nervous and fearful. But she had little other choice in the matter. Go with the tormentor, or languish forever in this dark, filthy dungeon for a crime she had not committed.

Ever so slowly, fear clutching her heart, Pyrrha reached her trembling hand up and grasped the outstretched hand. The smile on Tira's face grew even bigger.

* * *

Through the fields they went, fields where Pyrrha had ridden with her master in happier days, days she feared she would never see again. At her side, Tira was meandering about, whistling and singing to herself as though she hadn't a care in the world. The fields about them also were starting to show signs of neglect and misuse, as though they and Tira were together in some kind of chaotic symphony of disorder.

As soon as the manor came into view, Pyrrha gave a cry of fear. All about were horse-drawn carts, into which the other servants were placing as much of the master's goods as they could carry. It was insanity; those who had served their master faithfully for so many years, who should have been honoring his memory, were defacing it by their ransacking of his manor.

"This-this isn't right!" Pyrrha whined. "They...all of them, even the head of the servants, this is dishonorable!"

"Then why don't you go over there and tell them that?" Tira asked.

"I-I should, but..."

"But what? Afraid that I'm right?" Tira smiled wickedly as she spoke, knowing that she had struck a chord that resonated powerfully with little, meek Pyrrha.

With feet trembling and hands shaking, Pyrrha tip-toed her way from where she had been standing and approached the servants. A smile crept over Tira's face as she saw it unfold exactly as she had planned.

"Wh-What are you doing?" Pyrrha asked. "This doesn't belong to you!"

"It's our now!"

"Shut up, you stupid girl! This is none of your business!"

"Hey! Isn't you the one who murdered the master?" one of the servants asked.

"N-No, it wasn't me! I didn't kill him!"

Within a few moments, all the servants were now turning their attention to Pyrrha, sending some of their number to the servant's quarters to find discarded pitchforks, hoes and axes. Others were throwing stones, insults and threats at Pyrrha, telling her that they would see her hang for her treachery.

"How dare you come back here, you b*tch!"

"Kill her, kill her now!"

"She's a witch! She must die!"

Pyrrha backed away like a deer surrounded by the hunters, shaking all over, a look of abject fear on her face. She looked about, but there was no sign of Tira. She was now panting, heavy with fear. There was no escape.

"Tira, please!" she begged. "You were right! I'm sorry!"

Suddenly, a hand cuffed her a strong blow on the back of her head, sending her spiraling down to the ground with a pathetic whimper.

"Saying sorry won't change anything!" Tira growled. "Save your breath, you stupid little wench!"

"Tira! You were right!" cried Pyrrha. "They just wanna hurt me!"

"Aww, poor baby," pouted Tira in her happy, mocking voice. "You better get up off your feet and do something, or they're gonna kill you."

"K-Kill me? Like those nuns who hurt me?"

"Exactly!" seethed Tira. They really hadn't, all those years ago. They had actually rescued Pyrrha from where Tira had left her, standing on the steps of the Acropolis in Athens. But Tira told Pyrrha that _she_ had started the fire in the abbey, killing them because they had hurt her.

"But I don't wanna die!" Pyrrha wept.

"Then you better do something!"

"I don't have any we..."

Without a word, Tira stabbed the blade of the Last Sword into the ground before Pyrrha, then presented her with one last gift, something she had kept strapped to her back for three long years. It was heavy and dragged her down and still she kept it for the day when, against all hope, Pyrrha would be found again.

"My sword!" Pyrrha exclaimed. "My shield!"

"You know the rest." Tira said, turning to the coming mob of servants.

Pyrrha backed up first, holding her sword and shield up to the level of her face, as if she would cower away. She told them to leave her alone, to back off, or they might get hurt, but they only took this as great provocation and threats against their own lives. They rushed at her without mercy. From where she stood, Eiserne Drossel hanging on her shoulder, a smile crept across Tira's lips. She had trained her well, and now she was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing.

* * *

**(AN: While writing this chapter, I came to the realization that Tira has really grown up by _SCV_. I mean, in _SCIII_, she's pretty much just the servant of Nightmare and all that, and in _SCIV_, her juvenile cuteness is a little over-done. But by _SCV_, she's actually a force to be reckoned with.)**

**(In this chapter, we see Tira being uncharacteristically nicer to Pyrrha than previously. Tira is manipulating Pyrrha, plain and simple: she also knows that she can manipulate Pyrrha even more if she doesn't beat her up like usual. We also see what happened after the previous chapter, including Pyrrha's earliest memories [in this story, at least]. Now I've got some research to do, as far as the story of _SCV_, so the next chapters can be as fleshed-out as the last ones were.)  
**


	15. Tyskland

**(AN: Let me just say that the creators of _SCV_ have little to no concept of the history of Europe and the political environment of the 16th and 17th centuries [the setting of the games]. All my research leads me to believe that the Kingdom of Bavaria, where the events of this chapter take place [Episode 5 of the story of _SCV_], is in south-eastern Germany. However, the map in _SCV_'s story mode has our location in north-eastern Germany, closer to Saxony.)  
**

* * *

**Tyskland**

_1607 AD_

Germany, the land from whence Tira and Pyrrha had been driven so many years ago. It seemed like a life-time since they had been among people who spoke their language. Their arrival in Bavaria, the southeastern state of the Holy Roman Empire, was marked with several incidents of slaughter and destruction. These happened only at night, and in every case, there were rarely any survivors. Those who survived spoke of a young woman who terrorized the town, feigning innocence and fear and yet capable of the most horrific, ungodly atrocities known to man. Very soon, the name of _Der Mädchen von_ _Trauer_ was soon on the lips of everyone in Bavaria.

For the next three years, the innocent-looking girl was soon becoming quite the pest. Not only for the people of Bavaria, who feared whenever she might strike next, but for her guardian angel, the Danish woman hiding in the shadows. For her, she had to stay on her toes constantly with Pyrrha in tow. Every town and village they visited, she had to cause something, kill someone or destroy something, and set it up that the townspeople would believe beyond a doubt that it was Pyrrha's fault. She always had to keep her hand hidden as much as possible: her place was to keep Pyrrha's trust until the opportune moment.

And that was swiftly coming to pass.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

Nightfall in the town of Hof. Pyrrha was asleep, but Tira was busy doing what she did best. With a cloak about her body, she ran to the church, the one spot in any town which she hated the most. Beneath her cloak, she carried a barrel of gunpowder, eager to do what she had been doing for the past several years.

Through the doors she went, laughter on her voice as she popped open the small barrel and poured the gunpowder on anything that would catch fire. She knocked over statues, eager to make as much ruckus as she could. Down went the crucifix upon the altar, which she then picked up and smashed against a stone wall, laughing hysterically as it shattered to pieces. She then went to the candles, and started lobbing them across the chapel, landing with a fiery explosion upon the lines of gunpowder. The empty church was now filling with fire. Lifting up the barrel, Tira saw a little black powder still remaining.

"Oh, goodie!" she exclaimed.

While the church was burning from within, Tira sauntered out of the place, cloak secure about her person. She stowed away to the inn where Pyrrha had been staying. Before going up to her room, she whispered something in the ear of the stable-boy, then made off to the side of the inn. Up the wall she climbed and into the room, whose window was opened for the night. Very carefully, she crept across the floor, placed the lamp on her bed, then emptied the rest of the contents of the barrel on the floor.

"Wake up, dearie!" she shouted. "Troll's come to kill you!"

With a scream, Pyrrha woke from her bed, knocking the candle over and setting the floor aflame. As though on queue, the owner of the inn barged through the door, the young stable-boy at his side. It was all that Tira had been hoping for.

"Fire!" the stable-boy shouted. "She's set the inn on fire!"

"N-No!" she cried, stepping out of the bed and away from the door. "It wasn't me!"

"Kill her!"

* * *

Pyrrha had fought her way out of the inn, killing any who got in her way. Years and years of such had made killing second-nature, yet still unwelcome and hateful to little Pyrrha. As she made her way out of the inn, she saw fires spreading throughout the town. She tried to ask people what was going on, but they ran away from her as though she were a leper. Many others threw rocks and bricks at her, blaming her for the fire. She couldn't remember anything, but she was almost certain she was not responsible.

Some of the bolder ones tried to attack her, but she had her sword and shield in hand and, as they approached, Pyrrha attacked. While the town continued to burn, these attacks became fewer and fewer, since the others of the town were trying to put out the fires. Alone once again, she collapsed in the middle of the street, the Last Sword forsaken beside her as both hands covered her face. So many people had already died, and more were dying, trapped inside their houses that were now burning.

From where she was hiding, the true perpetrator of the mayhem whistled aloud at the weeping little child. She walked towards her, Eiserne Drossel on her shoulder and a smile on her face.

"Well well, Pyrrha," she said happily. "Not bad."

"No, no! It wasn't me!" Pyrrha whined. "I would never do this to the people of the city!"

_Of course it isn't your fault!_ the jolly thoughts exclaimed. _It's all us!_

**Just go along with it.** growled the gloomy thoughts.** She's vulnerable, she'll do anything we tell her as long as we kiss her little ass.**

"Of course I forgive you," she cooed, picking up the Last Sword and talking toward the little girl. Pyrrha recoiled, looking away from Tira's smiling face. "You were just protecting yourself from those nasty people. They wanted to kill you: _they_ were the bad guys."

Suddenly, voices echoed from the streets. Tira looked and saw a group of people running towards Pyrrha, weapons in hand. She smiled at the hatred she heard in their cries.

"Oh look!" she sang. "More people who don't understand you." She knelt down, presenting the Last Sword to Pyrrha.

"If you don't kill them first, they'll kill you."

"No!" Pyrrha whined. "I don't wanna get hurt!"

Tira scowled, skipping out into the darkness as Pyrrha sobbed over the sword. She was getting whiny, just as she did all the time. Just wait until they were upon her, then the blood would start flowing again. She hid in a darkened alleyway, watching as Pyrrha looked about at the burning streets, crying over her predicament.

"There she is! She's a monster!" one disgusted voice cried out.

"No, please!"

"She's a murderer! Kill her now!"

"Please, just go away! I don't wanna die!"

"Don't listen to her! She'll kill us all!"

Tira was laughing from where she hid, watching Pyrrha back away like a big dumb beast with the brain of a child. That was what she was, after all: a child in a woman's body, with weapons in her hands, retreating from battle like a wolf trapped and cornered by the hunters. They taunted and threatened her, swords, spears and pitch-forks aimed at her, and she backed away, sword and shield held up to the level of her face, tears in her eyes.

"Just s-stay back!" Pyrrha cried. "Or I'll...I'll kill you!"

Tira buried her fist into her mouth. It was happening again, just as it had for the past three years. Cries rose up from the people who thought they would be destroying the monster, but instead found themselves on the receiving end. It made her heart race as she heard Pyrrha cry as she cut them down, and the screams of the dying made her smile grow even larger.

An hour passed as the dead began to pile up around the little blond Greek girl. Tira, meanwhile, was watching them eagerly from her hiding place, as the number of dead kept on rising. Morning was rising and the last victim had cried his last breaths in this life. Tira, meanwhile, was emerging from her hiding place when a bird landed on her shoulder. This was Munin _den Anden_, the first fledgling of the hatch of her bird Munin. Sometime after leaving Greece, she found the small bird, flying its awkward path toward her. It had survived, though she hadn't known it at first. Over the years, she bred a new hatch of Watchers, of which Munin _den Anden_ was the chief, being the first of Munin's hatch.

The bird whispered something into her ear, after which she planted a small kiss on his feathery cheek then walked towards Pyrrha.

"Tira," Pyrrha panted. "I killed someone again. It-It wasn't my fault! I-I have to fight to stay alive."

"Hey, don't be so gloomy," Tira smiled. "You're a child of the Evil Seed, you're supposed to kill people."

"What?" Pyrrha asked, turning about. She had heard phrases like that spoken by her victims: they called her some other name, something that was often used, like the Greek word _kakóspóro_, to refer to those who were infected by the Evil Seed, corrupted by the power of darkness.

_Malfested._

"But...But I'm human!" Pyrrha whined.

"You thought you were human?!" Tira laughed. "Normal humans don't go around killing people and burning towns!" She had finally come to terms with that: she was not normal, and she would never be. It was absurd, really, that seventeen years or so had passed and Pyrrha still hadn't understood that yet.

"No!" Pyrrha began crying. "I-I'm not a malfested. I-I..."

"Oh, you don't wanna be what you are?" Tira mocked, before turning angry. "Have you forgotten what happened all those years ago? All those people who called you _Der Mädchen von_ _Trauer_ and drove you out of Tyskland like an _animal?!"_

"N-No!" Pyrrha shook her head. "I haven't..." She collapsed, throwing her weapons to the ground without even being hit.

**How pathetic!**

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me!"

_If I have to hear her say 'I'm sorry' one more time, I'm gonna kill her!_

**Believe me, I share your annoyance, but give it time. She's almost outlived her usefulness.**

* * *

**(AN: Dialogue was either quoted or paraphrased from episode 5 of _SCV_'s story mode. I don't like the word 'malfested', ever since Patroklos spammed us with it throughout the first four parts of the story, so I replaced it in some instances with variants. "Child of the Evil Seed" is rather long, and the Greek word _kakóspóro_ means "Evil Seed", which I've used as pretty much the same thing as...well, you know.)  
**

**(Tyskland is Danish for "Germany", and there will be an update. Soon, hopefully.)  
**


	16. The Revelation

**(AN: I had trouble with the title of this chapter, so settled on this one because of what happens in the story.)  
**

* * *

**The Revelation**

_1607 AD_

Several miles out of the ruin of Hof, the Raven and her pet were approaching a plain of battle. Munin _den Anden_ told her about a battle that was happening right now between the forces of Graf Dumas and a group of German mercenaries. This would be the perfect opportunity.

_I still think she's too young, too inexperienced._

**Too weak? Of course she's too weak! She's ready, just stop arguing with yourself and concentrate!**

They were standing atop a hill on the edge of the plain, looking out at the battle between the two forces. Tira smiled as she heard the voices of the wounded and dying, a tiny squeal of delight escaping her lips any time she heard someone cry out at being run through, stabbed or shot. It was all so much, so enjoyable.

The same could not be said for Pyrrha.

"I don't want to kill anymore!" she whined. "I don't!"

_Wah, wah wah!_ mocked the jolly thoughts. _All she does is whine!_ _Still, I guess she has reached her limit. _She whistled loudly at Pyrrha.

"Pyrrha, may I ask you something?"

"Wha-What do you want?" stammered Pyrrha.

"Do you remember your Mommy?"

"Uh, mommy?"

"Yes, dearie," she cooed. "Mother and father: everyone has them."

"N-No, I don't remember anything before..."

"Before what?"

"Before...the fire in the abey."

"So you're saying that you're all alone?" Tira asked playfully, her lower lip growing in a faux-pout. "You don't have anybody?"

"Yes," Pyrrha's blond head fell, her golden hair hiding her face like a curtain of dirty sunshine. "I'm alone. All alone!" She fell to her knees, face buried in her hands and started crying.

**If she keeps this up, I'm going to spank her myself!** growled the gloomy thoughts.

"Actually, you're wrong," Tira sang. "Quite wrong indeed. You have a family: a mother, a father and a little brother."

"W-What?" Pyrrha asked, looking up from her hands. "I have...a family? Really?"

"Yes yes," Tira dismissed.

"Where-Where are they?" Pyrrha gasped.

"Most of them are dead," Tira stated nonchalantly. "But the other day, when we were in Hungary, I saw a young man at the market." _A rather stupid and hair-brained coxcomb!_

"He was asking around the town," she continued. "He said he was looking for his long-lost sister. His name was Patroklos Alexander."

"B-Bu-B-But..."

"Yes," Tira exulted menacingly. "He has your last name, even a shield just like yours." She pointed her boot at the Elk Shield. She bent down so that she was on eye-level with the kneeling Pyrrha. "Don't you want to meet your brother?"

For a moment, Pyrrha's green eyes swelled with something Tira loathed more than life itself: hope. Hope was for the weak, those who believed in gods and spirits. Hope was for stupid people who were an inch away from the abyss, grasping at straws of something that wasn't real. Tira didn't need hope, and she never encouraged it in Pyrrha.

Suddenly, as soon as it had appeared, the hope vanished and Pyrrha turned her head away in fear. Tira smiled, knowing that she had seen the reality and all hope had abandoned her.

"No!" Pyrrha sobbed. "I can't! I'm malfested!"

"Don't worry," Tira replied sweetly. "I'll go with you. Just follow me, do what I tell you and no arguing, okay?" She rose back to her full height, holding out her hand for Pyrrha to take.

With hand trembling, Pyrrha extended hers up and accepted Tira's hand. With ease she lifted the little Greek girl to her feet.

_We should have said no whining or "I'm sorry's"._

All thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of soldiers marching towards them. Tira slowly started backing into the shadows just as the newcomers were approaching. Pyrrha looked about, quivering in fear, with her shield upon her left arm and her hand quivering upon the hilt of her sword.

"Humans _must_ be killed, right Pyrrha?" Tira laughed menacingly as she disappeared, leaving her pet to fend for herself against the newcomers.

* * *

The battle was short. The German mercenaries stood little chance before Pyrrha. From where she watched, Tira was happy of the killings but also proud of herself. She had raised Pyrrha up to be quite a fine killing machine. Though she still had remorse, it was quite happy seeing her take innocent lives with such ease.

**Don't grow too attached to her, now,** the gloomy thoughts stated. **Remember, the snake has no end.**

_No!_ the jolly thoughts wailed. _That's not how it's gonna end! I don't wanna die!_

**You really need to get rid of Pyrrha, you're starting to sound like her.**

As the last one fell before Pyrrha's blade, Tira saw the little girl collapse onto the battlefield, weapons forsaken and her fists banging at her head. Tira sauntered down the hill, tip-toed through the dead bodies and found her way to where Pyrrha had fallen.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"My head! It's hurts!" Pyrrha bawled. "I'm sorry."

**How did we know that was coming? What next, sticking your thumb up your mouth like a baby?!**

Sure enough, Pyrrha fell from her knees and was now laying on the ground, weapons forgotten as she wallowed in her despair. Though both of her hands were mouth-free, she was certainly making enough noise to nauseate Tira. But that was not her concern.

"Yes!" she purred, her shadow falling upon the lying figure of Pyrrha. "Kill, maim, butcher, soon you'll be irresistible. Your soul is growing fat on all the murders you've done. It won't be long now. Write in the depths of despair a little bit longer and you will become the perfect vessel!" She laughed as she watched the writhing form of Pyrrha.

**Idiot! You've said too much! We're so close to achieving our goal, we cannot afford to fail now!**

_Oh, you worry too much!_

Just then, Munin _den Anden_ alighted upon her shoulder and whispered once again what it had seen. The Watchers were her eyes and ears about Europe: the new hatch was used specifically to spy on the little brat Patroklos Alexander. Every night and sometimes during the day, they relayed messages to her in the language of birds about his whereabouts. From them she learned that Patroklos had left the employ of Graf Dumas and had been seen speaking with members of that German mercenary group, _Die Neu Schwarzwind. _They also told her that he had left them carrying a very special blade.

Soul Calibur.

_You see?_ the jolly thoughts gloated. _We _are _close, victory is more than within our grasp: it is assured. And when it happens..._

**Darkness will consume this world.**

* * *

**(AN: I think I can squeeze two more chapters into the story. A perfect situation would include twenty chapters, just like _Sophitia_. We'll see how that goes. Any suggestions? Please, tell me in the reviews: I will address them in the story, so don't worry.)  
**


	17. Patroklos

**(AN: Just in case you might be wondering, I pronounce Patroklos' name the way I was taught in my Mythology class: with emphasis on the first syllable [Pa-truhklus]. I thought I would end the story with the discovery of said character, but it was good where it ended.)  
**

* * *

**Patroklos**

_1607 AD_

Days had passed since the incident in the battlefield. Pyrrha seemed to be getting worse, constantly whining about her head. When it got too much to handle, Tira left her in the middle of a nearby forest, with her sword and shield on her. She sent Munin _den Anden_ ahead to look for the one she had been searching for, waiting eagerly for any sign of the little brat.

At last, there was a rustling in the forest and she heard the caw of Munin _den Anden_. Tira smiled, knowing what this meant. She heard mumblings just beyond the woods, and she made haste, eager to find herself toe to toe with the brat. Past two tall pine trees, she saw a young man, at least a hand or two taller than she. He had a shield, red and emblazoned with the horns of the Elk, just as she had seen on the back of a small, rounded buckler which she had kept for many years. He had curly yellow hair and wore no armor, simply a white surcoat and trousers, along with plain, unarmored, leather boots. On his shoulder was the head of a lynx as a trophy.

"I finally found you!" she exclaimed. The youth turned about exaggeratedly, hiding behind his shield with his sword pointed at Tira. "It's been a while, Patroklos. How's your search for your sister going?"

"Who the hell are you?" shouted the youth. "I've never..." He stopped short as Tira swung Eiserne Drossel about once, twice, three times and then let it rest in her open hands, ready for battle.

"That is a ring blade!" Patroklos exclaimed.

**Well, _he's_**** bright!** exclaimed the angry thoughts.

"It's my favorite," she commented merrily. She swung it about three more times, kicked it up, then grabbed it as it came to rest around her slender body.

"Say, yours isn't that bad either," she said, eying the Spirit Sword in his hand. It was smaller than it looked sixteen years ago, and looked sleeker and more menacing than she had remembered it. Into her mind there came the words of Soul Edge. While she was in possession of some of the shards of Soul Edge, the Sword confided much of its knowledge into her heart, including that of its twin. But it had told her something once that had shocked her mind, something that she had kept close to her mind in the making of her plans.

The Spirit Sword did not force its will upon the bearer, rather it conformed it's own will to meet that of the bearer.

"I guess the Spirit Sword is _your_ favorite now?" Tira asked.

"It is the perfect weapon," Patroklos retorted angrily. "For ridding the world of you filthy malfested!" He drew it out, pointing it at her. "Now I'll show you what my mother's Athenian style is capable of!"

He charged at her like a mad bull, shield first with his sword held backward like the tail of some bird. Tira jumped aside, holding her leg out to trip him over: he fell for it, collapsing in a heap of his own pride.

"You scared of me?!" he shouted.

"Hardly," Tira laughed. Patroklos got back to his feet and charged again.

Once, twice, three times they clashed blades, Tira throwing taunts in between every second or so. She led the fight like a puppet-master pulling the strings on her over-zealous, stupid little marionette. His moves were easy to predict, so easy that her jolly side dominated the battle almost entirely. She had crossed swords with this boy's mother, and she could tell from the start that he was an arrogant, pompous ass. Sophitia had no style, for, as she had learned, Azola had taught her how to fight.

The "Athenian style" Patroklos said belonged to Sophitia was nothing of the sort. Aside from the obvious use of the sword and shield, the stance was all wrong. Instead of holding the sword up with elbows loose yet firm, he held his sword perpendicular to his body, as far back as his arm, stiff, extended and locked, could reach. His was an aggressive stance, which seemed tailored for someone who attacked in anger.

"You're so silly," Tira laughed, as she leaped to avoid a slash of his blade. "Your stance is ridiculous: who taught it to you?"

"The most powerful woman in the world!" shouted Patroklos. "It killed a one-man army once, it can kill you malfested just as easily!"

"La-di-da-dum!" she sang. "Just words to me, hot air from a buffoon!"

"Malfested! I'll make you pay for that!" he cried.

Once more he attacked, heedless of all else. Tira was starting to get bored of the battle, since it was so easy to predict his moves. She knew in her heart that she had this puny little boy beat in everything. She was older and a much more experienced killer and fighter: if she so desired, she could kill him in three blows, in one if he was as stupid as he let on.

**Let me out!** growled the gloomy thoughts.

_But we're having so much fun! This little twerp actually thinks he can win!_

**Don't you get it? We're not supposed to win. Now let me out now!**

"Watch, malfested scum!" cried Patroklos. "This is...justice!" He rushed at her, sword a-swinging and a cry of vengeance in his throat.

**Do it now!**

She kicked up Eiserne Drossel, caught in with both hands, then head-butted the iron blade with her forehead. Her whole body slumped over as the gloomy side was now in control.

"It's too late!" she hissed at Patroklos. Again she attacked, holding sway over the tide of battle. She noticed two figures appearing out of the shadows of the trees.

**It's time now!**

She waited until he struck her with his blade. She held off the blow with Eiserne Drossel, and let the blade slide down the curvature of the blade until it nicked the up-side of her hand.

"Owie!" she exclaimed, stepping back as if hurt.

"Don't feel bad about it," Patroklos exclaimed haughtily. "You never could have won." He resumed the ridiculous stance he had taken before, shield held up and sword pointed at her. "Now, you weak little malfested, what did you do to my sister? Answer me!"

**That little b*tch!** the gloomy thoughts growled.

"What makes you think I'll tell you?" she mocked. "A wimpy little boy who's a pale imitation of his Mommy."

"Damn you, malfested!" Patroklos shouted. "I'll make you eat those words!"

Tira laughed, somersaulting backwards, then taking Eiserne Drossel in hand and setting off at a healthy pace. The chase was off! Patroklos was hot on the pursuit, and all she had to do now was lead him to Pyrrha. Then, it would all be over.

* * *

**(AN: A lot of people [lol] actually _like_ Patroklos. If any of you are such, well, sorry. Remember what I said about my least favorite _SC_ characters? Well, Dampierre is fourth, but Patroklos is first. And yes, he does say 'malfested' a lot in the story mode: it's pretty much his catch-phrase. Wanted to explain that herein.)**

**(Also, no, what he said about his master was _not_ a contradiction of _The Last Stage of History_. Setsuka lost to Mitsurugi in my canon, but she also lied to Patroklos, telling him that she won.)  
**

**(The next chapter is gonna be good!)  
**


	18. Endgame

**(AN: I think we can wrap the story up at eighteen chapters. As far as an appropriate ending goes, I've been planning one that is essential to the character development of Tira. It's gonna be really good.)  
**

* * *

**Endgame**

_1607 AD_

_Run run run  
As fast as you can  
You can't catch me  
I'm the gingerbread man_

The words of a meaningless song Grevinde Engel sang to her when she was in bed. Now she was the one doing the running, but it was all planned. All of it had been planned, ever since she stole Pyrrha away from her home sixteen years ago. Soul Edge told her everything she needed to know, the rest was just suspicion and careful planning. So carefully orchestrated was her meticulous plan that one would not believe an insane little Danish girl hearing voices could have created something so perfect.

When she came upon the glade, she saw that Pyrrha was not there. There was absolutely no sign of her. Had she run off on her, now when she was so close to the end of her plan?

_No!_ the jolly thoughts growled. _We're so close, how can she do this to us?_

**She couldn't have gotten far,** seethed the gloomy thoughts. **The fragment of the Blade in her body is working its way on her, she's growing up to fulfill her purpose.**

_The wielder of Soul Edge,_ Tira cooed. _But how will she be able to do that if we can't find her? We know where Soul Edge!_

**Just shut up and look for her!**

"Justice is coming, malfested scum!" the over-zealous voice of Patroklos sounded from not too far behind.

_That idiot!_ the jolly thoughts complained. _Won't he just give up already?_

**We trained him all too well. He won't give up until he thinks we're dead.**

Tira knew exactly what the gloomy thoughts meant. Though she had neither abducted him nor trained him personally, she had indirectly trained Patroklos since the day she had stolen Pyrrha. She lied to their father about Sophitia's death: over the next sixteen years, Patroklos had been raised with the knowledge that Tira had killed Sophitia. She had poisoned him with the burning desire for vengeance: so great and potent was that poison that anything of the Evil Seed he hated, and killed whatever got in his way if he thought it was infected.

Of course, playing with fire was always dangerous. That was what she was doing now, trailing Patroklos after her into the battlefield. Everyone was gone now except the two of them. Here, where the Graf's men and the _Neu Schwarzwind_ had done battle but a few hours ago, she would have her final showdown with the brat-spawn of Sophitia Alexandros.

Suddenly, she tripped over something lying on the ground. She swore suddenly, then looked down and smiled. Lying there on the ground was Pyrrha: she must have fainted while she was running away. But now it was the perfect setting, the last family reunion of what was left of Sophitia's family. And she, Tira, Eiserne Drossel, the misguided Angel of Death, was there to lord over their first meeting and the last parting.

"Still running, malfested!" Shouted Patroklos. "You afraid of me?"

"Stop right there," Tira returned merrily. "Or I'm gonna have to hurt this poor little girl." She stepped behind Pyrrha's body, planting her foot on it. Her hands then brought the edge of Eiserne Drossel down just a few inches above her neck to make her threat more serious.

"So what?" Patroklos replied. "She's your servant. She's just another malfested! You brought me here to trick me, haven't you? Well, you're the one who's fooled, you stupid malfested! Because I..."

She could feel his eyes moving down to the Elk Shield, lying forsaken but a few feet away from Pyrrha's lying body.

"Poor little Pyrrha," Tira mocked. "Abandoned by her own brother."

"Brother?" Patroklos replied. "Pyrrha? No!"

"Ah, ho ho ho!" Tira laughed. "Ooh, well look who's changed his tune! Now that he knows you're his sister, he suddenly gives a shit!"

She could see stupid little Patroklos' face turning red, his blue-green eyes brimming with rage. She was getting under his skin, just as she had with his mother. They were so easy, these goodies: just push them the right way, and they'll do exactly what you expect them to do.

"**_THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!_**" he screamed in an angry, wooden voice. "**_You kidnapped my sister and destroyed our family!_**"

_Yes to the first,_ the jolly thoughts commented. _But we don't have to tell him he's wrong about the second one._

"Aww," she tittered. "Now you're making me blush." She kicked Eiserne Drossel up, swung it about her waist, then placed it back onto her shoulder.

"Malfested!" he shouted, pointing his sword at her. "You're just a pawn of the Cursed Sword! Give me back my sister!"

Those words had been spoken to her for so long: the black man in white had said it, her own thoughts had said it, her enemies had said it as well. But those words had struck her harder than anything else this stupid little man had said. Soul Edge's power was being controlled by that weak puppet, Graf Dumas. It couldn't be controlling her, not now. Everything she had done up until now had been to bring about the world of darkness and evil, to create the new host for Soul Edge.

But what if that had not even been her own thoughts? What if she had been controlled by Soul Edge all along? What if she had no free will of her own?

"What's that?" she asked, the gloomy thoughts taking control as her voice became angry. "Me, the pawn? The only pawn I see here is this stupid little girl!" With her boot, she kicked Pyrrha towards her ranting brother.

_Yes!_ exclaimed the repressed thoughts of joviality. _I've waited so many years to do that to her!_

"_**YOU**** B*TCH!**_" Patroklos screamed.

_You sound like one yourself, the way you scream and cry at me!_

Her eyes narrowed as took her battle stance, Eiserne Drossel practically humming in her hands. He was angry, she was angry: this would be a battle for the ages, and she would be right there, making it happen.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

Patroklos attacked first, shield held forward and sword held backward, parallel to the ground. She could barely keep from laughing at how ridiculous he looked. He swung a horizontal attack, but Eiserne was in the way, fending off each and every blow. He kicked, she jumped out of the way. He hacked down at her, she rolled to the side. Every move he made she anticipated, even when she was angry and seething with rage.

_This is no fun!_ the jolly thoughts exclaimed. _I could kill him so easily._

But he was giving his all, she could tell. This battle was quickly going nowhere at all. It made her angrier and angrier, that she had such a pathetic excuse for an enemy. This was what she had planned since the beginning, and yet he was so weak. Would he not be able to do it in the end? Maybe she should kill him now and do it herself.

_If he can't even beat me, how can we expect him to destroy the sword?_

**Then we have to let him.**

_Wait, what? What do you mean? You said it yourself, he won't give up the fight unless..._

**Exactly.**

It was at this moment that Tira feared the worst. Her concentration was on the battle, which she controlled like a puppeteer, yet she could not shake the feeling that her voices had betrayed her. The gloomy thoughts had always led her down the dark, brutal path that kept her alive, but now they were asking her to do something she would never normally do.

"Malfested vermin have no right to live!" Patroklos screamed in between blows.

"And who are you to decide who lives and who dies, huh?" she replied. "Are you God?"

"No, I'm much better: I'm the Holy Warrior, and you're a worthless malfested who's going to die at my hand!"

Once more he attacked, sword clashing with sparks against the edge of Eiserne Drossel. Inside her mind, Tira began to worry about what might happen.

**Yes, that's right. You know what to do.**

_This isn't how I thought it would end!_

**Fool! Don't you understand? This is how it has to be.**

_But he's so weak, just like his sister! How can he be expected to..._

**His weakness is exactly what will drive him to do the task for which he was born to perform.**

_But what if he can't do it?_

**He _will_ do**** it!**

_But I don't wanna die!_

One after another after another. This fight was getting absolutely nowhere.

"Malfested, I can feel your will breaking! You are no match for the Holy Warrior!"

"Keep talking and I'll cut your heart out!" she seethed.

Contrary to what the arrogant child was barking, he was actually getting weaker. His blows were much slower, even though the corrupted Soul Calibur was guiding his blows. It was literally like fighting a child with a sword in their hands. He was getting clumsier as well: she saw fifteen openings where, had she taken her advantage, she could have crippled or killed him in one blow. But her jolly personality was no longer in control.

_Let me out, please!_

**We don't listen to pleas!**

_But you'll kill us!_

**If that's what needs to happen, then so be it.**

_But you've always kept us alive, haven't you? We survived because of you, yes?_

**But we've come this close! If we fail now, we won't ever get another chance at this. He'll escape with his whiny sister and they'll sail away to Greece or wherever and he will never fulfill his duty.**

_But why can't we do it? We would enjoy the destruction that comes with such glorious chaos. We would lord over the deaths of _millions_, greater than the Black Plague and every holy war ever fought! All those lives would be ours for the taking, now why would you waste such a perfect opportunity?_

For a moment, it seemed as though the jolly thoughts would come out victorious. The gloomy thoughts had nothing to say, but concentration was on the battle. The Greek boy wasn't getting anywhere, but it seemed like her gloomy voices, in control now of her body, were taking her down a path from which there would be no return.

_I demand to be released!_

**I'm in control, you stupid, optimistic fuck! You will do as I say!**

_No! I refuse to go down without a fight!_

She was successfully blocking and parrying each blow. The whole battle was all within her hands, to go wherever she wished it to go. Thus it had always been: she was clearly the better swords-woman. Years spent fighting for her life and killing other swordsmen had turned her into the perfect combatant. He, on the other hand, had not spent his whole life training with the sword and so was only half as good as she was. To throw the fight, as the gloomy thoughts suggested, was unthinkable, especially to one so weak.

Yet there was another reason she wanted to smash his face into the sand of the battlefield. He had called her a b*tch, which was what Solnhofen had said to her as a little girl. She was his because he owned her and she was not strong enough. That had been the weakness that had been broken out of her so early on. But she was no longer weak, and she would have no arrogant, thumb-sucking jack-o-napes call her something she was not! Worse than that, the very word suggested that she was weak and submissive, a servant still.

That only made her madness grow: was she indeed her own person, or had her entire life after the destruction of the _true_ Azure Knight all been planned and manipulated by Soul Edge, just as she had planned and manipulated the lives of these two children?

_I can't be beaten by this idiot! Never in a thousand years!_

**Of course we can't, but we have to make him _think_ he's beaten** **us.**

_But why does he have to kill us? Can't we do what we did before...?_

**No, it has to be convincing.**

_But I..._

**Enough talk!**

She pirouetted on her foot, swinging Eiserne Drossel at Patroklos' shins. He retreated, then she took to both feet, holding Eiserne Drossel high above her head and swinging it around once, twice, three times. Even an idiot would...

Suddenly, there was a sharp, tearing pain in her stomach. Her stomach, which her ridiculously frayed and torn surcoat did not protect, had given the fool the chance he needed.

* * *

_It hurts!_ wailed the jolly thoughts.

Her hands instinctively reached to her wound, now bleeding profusely. She had seen so much blood in her life, she thought it nothing to see blood again. But this was different, this was _her_ blood being shed, _her_ life being taken.

_Am I...going to die?_

**Maybe**. The gloomy voices were wicked in their torture.

_But I don't wanna die!_

She fell to her knees, her head dizzy and her heavy lidded eyes blinking. She saw Patroklos standing over her, then walking away to look for the little brat. She was all alone again, just as she had been for three years when Pyrrha had been abducted.

_If I...If I'm gonna die, I don't wanna die alone._

**Don't you get it? You spent seven years after leaving the Birds of Passage on your own before you found the Azure Knight, then you spent another three years all alone after Pyrrha had been kidnapped. You survived then, why not now?**

This never occurred to her, never in all of her life. Now, when death seemed so near, she asked herself why. Why had she kept going when Pyrrha was gone? All hope of her plan was gone, and yet she had soldiered on, surviving all on her own, without the Azure Knight, without Soul Edge, for three years? How and why?

Hope. She had to admit, hate it though she might and hate herself for being foolish enough to hope. In those dark days when all seemed forsaken and in vain, hope alone kept her from falling upon her own knife: the hope that, though it was foolish to hope, though it was in vain to hope, though all appearances were to the contrary, Pyrrha was still alive out there, that Soul Edge was not fully destroyed, that her plan would continue.

_I...I didn't think it would work,_ the jolly thoughts mused. _The plan._

**It worked beautifully.**

_Pity I won't be there to see it._

She had trained them both, even Patroklos from afar. Pyrrha she had trained into the weak, submissive little play-thing and Patroklos into the hot-headed firebrand, eager for vengeance. Soul Edge had told her that Soul Calibur changed itself to match the soul of its bearer, more than just in shape. It grew to match the mental and emotional strengths and weaknesses of its wielder. For the German popinjay, who wished to destroy what he had become and the Sword that he had allowed to deceive him, it was a weapon of righteousness. In the hands of this idiot, who killed innocent people just because he thought they might be Evil Seed, it was a force of destruction and merciless judgment. His weak soul had corrupted Soul Calibur and when the time was right, it would turn on Pyrrha and destroy her. Then he would have a choice before him: allow Pyrrha to die or destroy Soul Calibur.

Normal, weak, loving people were so easy to predict. She knew in her black heart that he would choose his whiny sister over the Spirit Sword. It had been a long time coming, this plan, and she had meticulously orchestrated each portion so that nothing would go amiss. All had almost been lost when Dampierre abducted Pyrrha, but she had found her in the end.

There had been one thing that gave her pause. The Sword told her that it had once been locked in an embrace with Soul Calibur, unable to gain strength as its power was checked by the power of the Spirit Sword. In her mind, she feared what might happen if Pyrrha and Patroklos took up Soul Edge and used it to destroy Soul Calibur: would it even destroy it, or lock it away in another soul embrace? What if it destroyed both of them?

But the Sword had told her something else, something it had not even told the old pirate whom Sophitia had destroyed so many years ago. Soul Calibur had been created from a piece of Soul Edge. Thus only the pure in heart could wield it, or it would be corrupted. Furthermore, as Soul Edge was the parent blade, if it was used against the Spirit Sword, it would absorb Soul Calibur back into itself again and Soul Edge would be stronger than ever. With nothing to stop it, the Sword would devour the world.

_If there's an afterlife,_ the jolly thoughts jested. _Sophitia must surely be weeping, knowing that her children will bring about Armageddon._

In the end, it mattered not whether she had done this of her own accord or whether she had been manipulated by Soul Edge. The cycle of life, as her _fuglemor_ had taught her, was being fulfilled. She had trained them, and they struck her down. The world of darkness, death and mayhem would come about and there was nothing any of them could do to stop its coming.

Tira smiled, knowing that, in the end, she had won.

* * *

**(AN: Oh look, I did not put "The End" at the end. But surely it must be the end, for Tira dies, right? Oh, but that is not true. I could not bring myself to kill of Tira. As evil as she is, and whatever she had done, I cannot kill off another fan-favorite: _SCV_ did plenty of that on its own, thank you very much. She obviously threw the fight [I think I made that clear from the start], but she did not die.)**

**(But what has happened to Tira? Well, I have another story called _Witch's Soul_ in the works. It's a cross-over, but it tells what I believe happened after the events of this chapter.)  
**

**(Here is the big revelation, where we see my explanation for why Soul Calibur is "evil" in _SCV_ ["malfestor" seems to suggest that it is actively evil and creates malfested, but I will not refer to it as such]. It was corrupted by a vengeance-driven child. Lastly, the ending of _SCV_ suggests that [spoilers follow] Pyrrha stabbed Soul Calibur with Soul Edge. Since, as the lore says, Soul Calibur was created from a shard of Soul Edge, it would mean assuming Soul Calibur into Soul Edge rather than the Soul Embrace, which means Soul Edge survived _SCV_ and we have no means of destroying it because the only one who ever destroyed it without Soul Calibur is dead, leaving us with her two children who actually _trust_ in the power of Soul Edge to save them from salvation.)  
**

**(The story is over, but the legend will _NEVER_ die [even though _SCV_ tries its best to kill it off].)  
**


	19. Epilogue

**(AN: So one day I thought I'd make like the Spanish Inquisition and do something that NOBODY would have expected: adding an epilogue to this story! Well, I went back to the campaign of _SCV_ for reference with my other story _Witch's Soul_ and saw that Tira actually did survive her encounter with Patroklos, as I hinted at at the end of "Endgame" and stated in _Witch's Soul_. So here it is, the other ending of the story, just as canonical as the last one.)  
**

* * *

**Epilogue**

_1607 AD_

For all, death is the end. But, should we dare to hope that something awaits us beyond our final breaths, how would we wish to meet it? Slowly and softly, like the soothing voice of our mother, waking us up from a long night's sleep, perhaps: a gentle welcome into the afterlife.

Tira was ripped out of the darkness by a splash of cold water. She coughed and spattered, feeling her mood sink with her water-logged clothing. Her eyes creaked open and she found that she was in a cold basement of stone, lit up by a few torches upon the walls.

_We made it?_ the jolly thoughts asked. _We're alive?_

**Obviously,** snarled the gloomy thoughts.

"She's awake!" a voice called from out of her sight. Tira looked about and saw, looming out of the darkness, a face she hadn't seen for many years, a face she loathed more than the whining child she had been forced to raise into a weapon of destruction.

"Hello, popinjay!" she sneered.

"What is your name?"

"You know my name, you shit-brained dolt!" she replied. "Now tell me where I am before I tear your heart out with my teeth!" She said this for she realized that her hands were closed up in irons and she could not move them towards him.

"Your location is secret," Siegfried replied. "But you're in the hands of the Schwarzwind. We bandaged your wounds and you will live."

"You shouldn't have done that," she said, hanging her head. "You've broken the natural progression of the circle."

"Everyone deserves a second chance," he stated.

"You're wasting your time," Tira replied. "If you let me live, I'll kill every last one of you until I have my hands around your throat." She laughed, as the jolly side emerged for the first time since her duel with Patroklos. "Then you'll be sorry!"

"I need information," Siegfried said.

"Oh?" she cooed. "So you've seen your mistake, have you? You found out that Patroklos is a hot-headed little coxcomb who's only out for revenge." She giggled. "You found out that his desire to kill me and the other Evil Seed has poisoned your precious Soul Calibur."

"Then you know?" he asked.

"There's nothing you can do to stop it!" she stated, her voice heavy with joy. "Very soon, the world and everything in it will come to an end! You're all going to die!"

She laughed, then rose up and lunged at Siegfried, hands trying to reach his neck. But the chains held her back just a few inches shy of their target. She angrily shook her arms, then exploded into a fit of laughter, rattling her chains as though she were a dumb beast capable of nothing else. With disgust in his blue eyes, Siegfried left the room, his iron shoes echoing up the stairs.

_Yes, yes, yes!_ exulted the jolly thoughts. _We're alive and everything's in order! We did it!_

**Not yet we haven't!** she said. **There's still time. That idiot might get wise and try to destroy Soul Edge.**

_But he won't be able to, he's too weak! They both are! They're only strong enough to get this into motion!_

**But what about _him?_**

The voice that spoke to her was not that of her gloomy side. She looked around her, but saw nothing and no one else in the room. She was quite alone, and yet, she knew beyond a doubt, she was not entirely alone either.

* * *

Minutes later, a soldier clad in armor entered her chamber with a key in his hands. Tira didn't ask him his purpose, for she guessed it from what that popinjay had said about everyone deserving a second chance.

_The fool!__ He's only hurting himself!_

**That's why we hate such filth,** sneered the other side. **They oppose the very balance of nature with their ideals of helping others, making themselves weaker and those they think they're helping weaker as well.**

Her violet eyes did not leave the man as he slid the key into the lock of her chains. As soon as she had one hand free, she seized the back of his neck and smashed his face into the stone wall. It was a quick blow, and she could feel his neck breaking with the force of the blow. A smile split across her lips as the poor man crumbled to the ground. With her free hand, she seized the keys and unlocked the other hand.

_Now, to murder that popinjay in his sleep!_

**Where have they taken Eiserne? We must have it!**

With silent steps, a result of the rigorous training in her youth with the Birds of Passage, she walked up the stairs quickly. Down a narrow, torch-lit corridor and then up a flight of stairs, then the air started to get warmer. Through a heavy door she went, and found that her wounds, though still aching, were not as bad as she had first thought.

Outside, she found herself in the ruin of what had once been a monastery. Though she hadn't destroyed it, she was glad to see it in ruins: anything to see the tyrant she loathed brought down and desolated. But the Schwarzwind had turned it into a camp of sorts, and the basement of the chapel, she guessed, was her prison.

**First, we need to find where they keep the weapons. Like as not, that's where they've stowed away our sword.**

Just then, two more soldiers in the outlandish clothing of Swiss _Landsknechts_ walked past, muttering something about an armory. Tira marked where they were going and when she deemed that she was not being watched or followed, she made her way thither. It had originally been part of the stables, but had caved in during whatever calamity had befallen this place. A tent was placed over the portion uncovered by the fallen roof, and within were kept all sorts of weapons and armaments, from crossbows to firearms. Tira hid herself behind a large barrel full of gunpowder as she heard two voices arguing very near by. The first voice belonged to the German popinjay, but the second voice was on she hadn't heard before.

"_Bitte, Zwei_, you can't go out like this!"

"Watch me, old man!"

"We've already made a terrible mistake," Siegfried said. "Don't make another one."

"No, _you_ made the mistake!" shouted the other one. "When you chose to trust that idiot Patroklos with Soul Calibur. Did you even consider what the others had to say? What about you yourself, and all that shit about Soul Calibur molding itself to the will of the wielder? He's going to kill everything and everyone he thinks is _malfested_."

"_Zwei,_ wait!"

"No, I'm done waiting. This whole Soul Calibur Soul Edge business is a crock, and I'm going to cut it off at its source. I'm going to Denevér Castle to destroy the Azure Knight and Soul Edge and we can all be done with this!"

"_Zwei_..."

"No more! You're finished, old man: washed up, incompetent! You had your time with both swords, but your day is over."

"Stand down, lieutenant! You disrespect your commanding officer!"

"Like you deserve respect."

"I forbid you to go!"

Suddenly, Tira heard a growl, like the roar of a wolf. Silence followed, and Tira wondered what had happened. She couldn't see much from behind the barrel, and didn't want to reveal herself.

"We're done here!" said the one whom popinjay called _Zwei_. The sound of heavy boots walking away was heard, and Tira guessed that this man, _Zwei_, had won his argument and was now on his way to find the one the voice had spoken of: _h__im_. He walked towards the cache of weapons, picked up a short sword by the guard (_He can't even hold his weapon correctly!_ her jolly thoughts giggled) and walked away. It was then, once his weapon was gone and she heard the heavy footfalls of popinjay Siegfried leaving, that she saw what she was looking for and her eyes welled up almost to the point of tears.

_Eiserne Drossel._

* * *

Her path took her east once again, into the Kingdom of Hungary. After leaving the monastery, she stole a horse from the nearest town and, still hot on _Zwei_'s trail, followed him faster than she had ever pursued anything before. The Sword was guiding her, but that didn't matter. It no longer mattered who was in control, for she didn't care if Soul Edge controlled her. _It_ was the being of pure destruction and malevolent will, not the insignificant wielder. Only it was worthy of worship or of controlling her actions, for her desire to kill and cause suffering went along side it forever.

_If only _I_ could have wielded it_, her jolly thoughts pondered astride the horse. _What we could have done!_

**Yes yes, millions would have fallen before us,** the gloomy thoughts growled. **But we can sit back and watch the end of the world, knowing that we'll enjoy the destruction just the same.**

For three days and nights she rode, following the trail of _Zwei_. It ended at last on a great plain deep in the Kingdom of Hungary. In the distance, she could descry a tall mountain, atop which stood a great and powerful castle. She knew that castle all too well, and the pretentious potentate that squatted therein, lording over the power of destruction, letting it go to waste. Her mood fell as she saw it grow larger with each gallop of the horse.

**The Sword is right,** she said. **That idiot is weak. He let himself be defeated by those children, but didn't surrender the Sword. He's just like that popinjay, clinging onto what is his no longer. _We_ have to make sure it falls into the _right_** hands!

Onward she went, towards the castle and towards the final stage. The foolish children had not wholly destroyed Graf Dumas when he faced them in Greece. Now he was still at large. She would make certain the Sword returned to its rightful owner when the time came.

**-|-~-\o/-~-|-**

The valley about Denevér Castle was filled with the sounds of warfare. Battle and carnage was happening all around her. Her heart leaped with the sound of the screams, her eyes swelled at the sight of blood and severed limbs and heads flying about with reckless abandon. But not all the creatures here were human: some were Evil Seed, more twisted and inhuman than herself. She saw giants, dragons and eagle-like creatures flying in the sky or striding upon the ground, adding to the number of dead. Tira also saw that many of the humans bore a black scarf wrapped about their necks, the sign of the Schwarzwind.

_At least popinjay is losing pawns_.

But her goal lay ahead of her. All evils were drawn toward the Cursed Sword, and she knew that, whether she liked it or not, young Pyrrha would be drawn there as well. Now was the last move: the die had been cast, and now she moved the hands of fate as she saw fit for the end of days.

Up to the edge of the castle she went, to the walls where the Schwarzwind were raising their ladders. Picking up a black scarf from one of the fallen, she joined their ranks and walked up a ladder that was set up against the walls of the castle. With Eiserne hanging on her shoulder, she mounted the ladder and began the ascent to the top of the wall. As she walked up, she realized just how vulnerable she was up here. Someone up top could see them coming up, push the ladder off and send her plummeting to her death. Or there was the chance of an arrow, a blast of gunpowder or boiling oil that might set her ablaze.

Suddenly, she gave a lurch and seized the rungs of the ladder tightly. A large, man-shaped object came flying down from off the side of the castle walls. It hit the ground with a sickening crunch, and she smiled to herself. Some_one_ had been pushed off the castle walls and was now dead. She re-doubled her pace and came at last to the top of the wall, where she nonchalantly pushed the ladder down, killing the Schwarzwind soldiers who were climbing up after her.

But it was the sight she found upon the terrace of the castle that made her heart race. There stood Pyrrha, with a look of curiosity on her face and her sword stained red. She still looked mostly the same, though her clothes seemed darker and, Tira noted, her eyes had become red like fresh blood. Then she noticed that her right arm had become knobby, spiky and deformed, like the arm of the Azure Knight: it was smaller than his, but she dismissed this because Pyrrha was weak and not capable of holding such power. But it was not Pyrrha, corrupted by her encounter with Soul Edge in Greece, that caused Tira's heart to race: for standing on the terrace of the castle, its single, yellow-red eye glaring out with ever-hungry, murderous intent, was what she had traveled miles to find, what she had risked her life, wasted her youth and hazarded loneliness, weariness, sorrow and all other woes to find.

Soul Edge.

She knelt before it reverently, caressing the growth upon the blade as one would caress a lover.

"Welcome back," she whispered to the Sword. "I've missed you."

"T-Tira?" a distorted voice asked her.

Tira rose to her feet and saw Pyrrha walking towards her, swaying ever so slightly this way and that. The time was now. The Sword was free from the pretender, and now it could fulfill its desire. In her hand, Tira saw the Elk Shield, the last remnant of what remained of her mother, Sophitia Alexandra. The Last Sword was still in Pyrrha's hand.

"It's yours now," Tira said to Pyrrha, gesturing to the Sword of Heroes. "Take it."

With a fateful clang, Pyrrha dropped the Last Sword. The Sword of Olympus had spilled innocent blood, its purpose corrupted. The daughter of Sophitia would wield a new sword. Her hands, the tiny pale one and the larger, malformed one, gripped the hilt of Soul Edge. Tira took a step backward, laughing inwardly as Pyrrha cried to the Sword, begging it to never leave her, to always be with her. Foolish child, the bearer meant nothing: it was all the will of the Sword and now, she had done what she had always intended to do.

Suddenly, the inferno broke loose. Waves and currents of evil, chaotic energy wrapped themselves about Pyrrha as the malevolent will of Soul Edge was unleashed at last.

"It's working!" Tira exclaimed. "It's reaching out to you, I was right! You _are_ the only worthy heir of Soul Edge!"

She walked away, leaving Pyrrha to her fate. She had played her part: she had insured that Patroklos had been raised, poisoned with the seeds of vengeance, while Pyrrha she personally trained into the next bearer of Soul Edge. Now it was in her hands, as it should be. If she won, and her jolly side laughed at the idea that this could actually happen, the world would be engulfed in darkness and she would get to see it firsthand. If she encountered Patroklos, what she had intended to happen, the idiot boy must make a choice. When she touched the Sword, however, it told her something again, something that it alone had experienced.

Patroklos had faced Pyrrha already in this corrupted form. If he was indeed as weak as Tira suggested, he would choose his sister over destroying Soul Edge. If their luck held, they would then turn on the Spirit Sword, Soul Calibur. And without that to stem the growth of the power of Soul Edge...

Tira smiled.

**THE END**

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**(AN: NOW, the story is really done.)  
**

**(Once again, leave your comments, thoughts, suggestions, etc. in the reviews. I'm glad someone enjoyed this story. Though the plot of _SCV_ is confusing, it's a good challenge to try and make sense of it. I think I shall do so again: not as a cross-over, like with _Witch's Soul_, but as a stand-alone story about a NEW character!)  
**


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